


Digging in the dirt

by basaltgrrl



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:05:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/pseuds/basaltgrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets seriously injured while investigating the abduction of a young boy and it’s up to Gene and Annie to figure out what happened and why, and how to keep their DI sane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Digging in the dirt

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: I must now proffer thanks to SO many people, because I kept asking more people for help along the way. These all offered their beta reading and/or britpicking skills to me: thesmallhobbit, fawsley, margo_kim, petronelle, and thirdbird_fic. I am tremendously grateful to the lot of them. Special thanks to thesmallhobbit for reading the fic the most and offering me the best nuggets of brit wisdom, and an extra acknowledgement to petra for final punctuation and spelling review and awesome encouragement.

  


Sam had stopped screaming.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been.Hours?Aeons?

It had been light; now it was dark.It was colder now.His twelve foot square concrete prison felt emptier; maybe the absence of bird noises, far above, or the way every detail seemed to be melting into the dark, the texture of the raw concrete melting into an unadorned greyness, the bits of construction debris losing form.

He stared up the darkness of the lift shaft at the square of night sky.A moan escaped him. Even to his own ears he sounded peevish and whinging.Weak.But he couldn’t help it, with the grinding, the pain that made his guts twist, his esophagus spasm though there was nothing in his stomach to bring up.

When.

When would they miss him?Probably already had.Probably searching.Probably searching for hours.Gene.Yelling.Punching.Making that “I’m going to rip your balls off” face. Annie with that wrinkle between her brows, the concern that made her even more sweet.Her hands on his face.Think of them.Distractions.Her lips.Soft.Her eyes, her concern.

A shudder wracked him and he tried again to curl to conserve body heat and once again gave up on the effort as the pain flared, focused.“Oh fucking hell,” he mouthed, but without sound, his voice lost with the daylight. Fuck, at least cold numb feet no longer pestered him with their bastard stabs of pain.He had thought about taking his boots off, just after the fall.Or at least, after he had regained some control, after his initial flood of adrenaline and terror.But it had seemed wiser to leave them on as a sort of compression bandage.Now he was afraid they’d be impossible to cut off with all the swelling.He was astounded that none of the breaks were compound.

He imagined the lot of them at the Arms.Pints all around, the glow of light and camaraderie and alcohol warming every one.Every bastard one of them.Laughter.Cards.Darts.What he would give for a hipflask just now.Gene could spare one.Wouldn’t, the stingy bastard.Wouldn’t give Sam even one sip from his hipflask.One sip, burning, tasting of wood and smoke and yeah, a hint of perfume.Warm from the heat of Gene’s body.One sip wouldn’t do a thing to dull the pain, but more whisky would inevitably follow.More warmth.More Gene.

They knew where he had been going.More or less.He had told Phyllis, in passing, although she had been on the phone and he didn’t know how much attention she had paid to him.They had made eye contact, though.That was something.If only he had said something to Annie.A hint.A word, a name, one tiny inkling of the thing—but no.There had been a moment in the hall; she turned, smiled at him.He thought about walking up to her, watching her dimples deepen.Treasuring her.Telling her everything he knew.

The open square far above was lost in the darkness of the shaft.It felt like there was a slow but steady wind blowing down.He shook with the cold.Mouthed the words that he wanted to be screaming; “I don’t deserve this!What did I ever do to deserve this!”And the noise was coming out of him again, the strange, animal noise.It scared him and he choked on his own screams, scrabbled the few inches to the corner of his concrete box and put his back against the wall so at least nothing could come upon him from behind…

He was breathing in tiny, hitching gasps.He scraped his cheek against the rough concrete until it stung.His feet seemed to be roaring at him from a great distance.“Leave me alone,” he said—tried to say, the only sound that came out was “Nnnn.” Closed his eyes.Floating in dark, pain like lightning flashes all around him.Closer.Closer.Strike.Curled up with retching.Felt Gene’s words trying to come out of his mouth.His face was in the dirt again.He had fallen over.

He imagined every detail of Gene handing him a pint of bitter.With his eyes closed he could see the shape of the glass.Squat, thick, reflecting the color of the liquid, the orange light, the weight of it, Gene’s fingers.“Here you go, Sam.”

“Wanted whisky.”

“Well, that’s not what you’re getting, is it, you dozy git!”

Sam laughed, took the pint.Smiled, caught the grin on Gene’s face.Crumpled to the floor as the pain took him again, but he could still smell the Arms, oh the must of it, the reek, the absolute reek of generations of cigarette smoke baked into the leather.The whiff of Gene’s aftershave.The whiff of Gene’s sweat.

Why was he sweating?It was cold. Nelson wiping down the counter.The pint, cold in his hand, beads of water, cold.

He might have drifted off.He woke to her voice, thin and childish.“Sam.”He could see her even in the dark.It wasn’t that she glowed, but he could see her plain as day. Why did she still exist?He thought he would never see her again after—after that day.But here she was, clown and all.Not in his flat, not in his mind, not--

“Leave me alone,” he mouthed.

“Does this make you feel real, Sam?Do you want this?”She walked over to him, sat down next to his foot and pinched him.

He kicked in involuntary agony and made a horrible animal noise as the pain ripped through him.

“Did you know the shaft was here when you took a step backwards?I think you did.”She prodded his ankle, where it had swelled above his boot, and again he made that noise, twisting against the dirt.“Of course you knew it was here.You created it.You made this place, and you made that man you were looking for when you came here, and you made the people who are looking for you.”

He held on to that thought, rubbing his face against the packed earth.People.Looking for him.

“But if you made them,” she continued, inexorably, “then you made them unable to find you.You made them leave you out here in the cold.”

People.People he knew.They were so real, so fucking real.His mind swam with an almost terrifying swirl of images; Gene’s hands sliding up under his shirt, Annie’s grin, her earnest look, her mouth as she said, “Stay here, forever,” Gene’s green eyes crinkled in amusement…

“I’m the only one who knows where you are.”

He did not want to believe her.He did _not_ want.He had doubted and fought.He thought he knew what the answer was.She wasn’t real, either, but she was _here_ , here in the fucking dark, _hurting_ him.What rationale could there possibly be for that?Did that make her more real, or less real, than the rest of them?

“They hurt me,” he rasped.Focused on that.If feeling was what made things real, then Gene was as real as anything, and Annie, slapping his face when she doubted him.As real as this girl, this phantom.Gene and Annie were so real that he had abandoned his mum, for fuck’s sake.Her face swam in his memory, and suddenly that pain was greater than anything else.

“She’ll d-d-die.She’ll just… die.Alone.Without her—little—boy.”And having said it, he curled with the pain of it, like a piece of paper in a flame.

-#-

There was a hint of dawn light in the sky when they found him.He heard yelling, people calling his name.But he had heard voices before.BlinkedBlinked again, staring at sky.His body stiff and cold as concrete.He made a noise, guttural and nasty, nothing that sounded like words but before long a head appeared in the square of grey.

“Sam!”

He rolled over and made his horrible noise as it wracked him, even through the cold.

“He’s here!Quick, he’s here!”

Rattling and footsteps, yelling, so much more than there had been all night.He wanted to hide from it.Change, light, voices.He opened his eyes and stared at the dirt, the fragments of concrete, a bent nail.Scuffs in the dirt.A wide, dark stripe of something that had soaked into the ground.He folded his arm up toward his face, hitching it bit by bit.Flexed his hand, once he could see it, once he knew it was his.Couldn’t feel it.Too cold, too cold to know anything.Too cold to know what existed anymore.

A yell, shoes hitting the ground in front of his eyes. White, scuffed.Urgent. He closed his eyes.There was talking, some of it addressed to him, but he found that he didn’t have to respond.They knew what to do without his input.Did that mean they were separate from him, separate identities?He pondered the problem until they moved him, and then the surge of agony blocked it all out in a way that he had prayed for all night.

Voices.He opened his eyes, and the wide dawn sky was all around him.Shapes and walls and figures and sky.He was on a stretcher.Moving.Gene was suddenly looming from his right, looking white and drawn, looking real, looking larger than life.

“Sam,” he gasped.He took Sam’s hand.It hurt.Sam aimed a punch at Gene’s jaw with his other hand; it bounced off and he whined in pain.

“Would you give this man some painkillers!” Gene barked furiously at the nearest figure.

“He’s had an injection of morphine, sir—we can’t give him more until we’re at hospital.”

“Where were you?” Sam snarled, tried to snarl—it came out sounding like the ghost of a whinging child, a husk of a voice.

“We searched all night.You couldn’t have told Phyllis some details? Christ, Tyler!We’ve had twenty men out if we’ve had one, and none of ‘em have had a wink of sleep—“

Sam turned his head, choked back a sob.It was too much, to be blamed for this.For the night he had just spent.And why would he want to experience that?What reason?What was wrong with him?Who chose shite like this?

“Bloody hell, Sammy!I know you’ve got a mind of your own but this is ridiculous!”The words were sharp but Gene’s voice was raw.

“Shut up,” Sam whispered.

He had stopped hearing Gene, only aware of a wailing sound as he ground the heels of his hands into his eyesockets, welcoming the pain like a dear old friend and counterpoint to the gnawing agony that seemed to have only now eased its grip on his left leg.His right leg still screamed its message of horrible damage.It was interesting to think of them as two separate entities.The left, more passive.The good one, the quiet leg at the front of the class.The right – a real troublemaker, that one.Always throwing rocks, pushing girls.Sneaking a fag out back of school.Disappointing the parents.

Sam started to imagine a headmaster taking the cane to his right leg, and was jolted back to reality by a wave of nausea that had him rolling sideways and puking bile over the side of the stretcher.Hands restrained him; he blinked and recognized the interior of an ambulance, and then Annie, holding a basin for him and putting a hand against his cheek.The sound filled the vehicle; yeah, it was the siren, not—not something else.

“Sam!Sam, can you hear me?”

He nodded, lay back shuddering.

“Oh Sam.”She was crying.“You’ll be OK, Sam.We found you.It’ll all be OK.”

He wanted to grind the heels of his hands in his eyesockets again but couldn’t – there were straps, he was strapped down, and the strange cry was so loud, he wanted to scream again but he couldn’t do that either—the only thing he could do was fucking close his eyes.Close his eyes, make it all go away.

“Make it all go away,” she said, that voice, that girlish voice.

And it was gone.

-#-

Gene and Annie sat together in the hallway for hours.Not speaking, except when she rose and went for coffee.He grunted in thanks, took his cup from her hands and nursed it in twitchy silence.She had spent the first hour watching the passing figures, peering into faces and expecting each nurse to come speak to them.In a professional sense it intrigued her to observe this behavior in herself. Her degree of worry was so far beyond what that word normally entailed that she felt like her mind was doing new and bizarre things.Wondering if any of the nurses had looked at Sam, had seen him enter the operating theatre.Thinking about details, but not about _him_.Not about his appearance.

Gene didn’t yield to her powers of observation.She could tell he was fighting a losing battle against the urge to smoke.His pack was almost empty.If something didn’t happen soon he’d have to go in search of more and risk missing any news.He did not seem willing to leave, indeed, to move at all.There was a corner shop across the street from the hospital; he could go there.Or she could go and buy him some fags and sweets, make a phone call to CID.

The smoke and murmur of CID was instantly eclipsed by the memory of Sam twisting on the stretcher.She heaved a breath, turned to look down the hall again.If she could have something new to focus on.

“Why won’t they let us see him, sir?”she asked, suddenly.

“They told us the surgery went well.Shouldn’t be long now.”

She sighed.“I know.That’s what they said two hours ago.I just don’t understand—“

A nurse came to a halt in front of them.Annie analyzed her expression, the lines around her tired eyes.The pinched mouth.

“You’re here for Sam Tyler?”

They followed her down the hall.Gene’s fingers touched hers; she glanced down—his hand twisted in invitation.Her fingers slid into his palm.Through some swinging doors, into a quiet room, and Sam—bleached and shrunken, looking small under the white sheets and some sort of brace around his legs, his eyes bruised and his lips chapped.One hand lay on top of the blanket, knuckles raw and dabbed with iodine.

“He won’t be awake for hours, but we thought you—you waited so long, you might want to see him.Doctor says he saved both legs.Close thing.Call if you need me…?”And the nurse was gone.

They stood there, staring at him all raw and injured and wrong, and the thoughts were once again surging through Annie’s mind.Sam’s eyes, Sam’s lips, Sam’s whip-smart brain.Sam’s bird.That’s what they’d been calling her, recently.Since she and Sam had been walking out.She hadn’t let go of Gene’s hand.She squeezed it tighter now.

-#-

Sam was walking down a sidewalk with his mum.His mum and his Auntie Heather; they each held one of his hands, and he bounced and leapt between them until she chided him, asked him to behave.He had to behave if he wanted an ice cream.

They were at the beach.It was windy and grey and he had run down the shore.He looked back, and he wasn’t sure who was standing next to his mum.It could have been his dad.It might have been a stranger.He looked back out at the ocean, the waves marching toward shore.Down at his feet.A stick.A few shells.

He crouched.He was at the top of a hill, and his dad was nearby, and another man, a crying man.He felt terrible about it; something was his fault and there was nothing he could do.He picked up a stick, stabbed it into the black dirt between his feet.There was something in the dirt.

Something special.

-#-

“Well then.”Gene turned in a half circle, scanning the room.“Does _anyone_ have _anything_?”

The only responses were scufflings, a creaking chair, a snort from Ray.The entire team was gathered, blinking in the bright afternoon light, producing clouds of smoke but very little data.

Gene raised his hand, demanding their full attention.“We have a note.Tyler’s handwriting.A phone number, at which there is no answer.A note in someone else’s handwriting, found on Tyler’s desk, and I quote, ‘We will kill the boy if we have to’.Then we have my DI running off in the evening without informing anybody of his whereabouts.You know what came next.”

A muttering from the gathered detectives.

“I want answers, gentlemen, and I want them yesterday.Missing children.Anyone who lives near the construction site.Interviews.Now!”

Annie watched them all without saying anything, watched the mutters, Ray’s triumphant little swagger as he passed Sam’s desk.It was weird to doubt them, to doubt that they cared.And now her mind was wandering, because she had been staring into space that was suddenly filled by Gene’s bulk.

“Cartwright.”

“Guv?”

“My office.”His face and voice were neutral, as was his walk as she followed him through the doors, but she could read urgency in all of it.Or maybe she was just projecting.Lord knew she was feeling enough of that herself.She had seen his urgency at the hospital, though; that white, punched-in-the-kidney look, he couldn’t have faked that.He was really worried.Although really, he couldn’t be as worried as she was.She had to close her eyes for a moment, dizzy with terror.

“Did he say anything to you, this last week?”Still the quiet voice; she couldn’t tell if it was the tone that meant he was going to explode.

“I’m sorry, sir.I—“

He turned away from her with a sense of barely suppressed force, put his hands on his hips and tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling.After a pause that seemed to drag on far too long he continued, “Work with me, WDC Cartwright.I need to know why my DI was at a construction site in the wee hours of the morning, falling down bloody holes and breaking every bastard bone in his body.Do you have any information, any word from him, any—note?Piece of paper?Phone call?Did he do anything odd?Wait, what am I saying—anything odder than usual?”

“Sir.”She swallowed against the tears.“I wish I had something to give you, but he didn’t say a thing to me.”And it stung, that did.That he would have run off to some sort of terrible danger without asking for her assistance.Because he had asked, in the past.And she thought she was that, to him—the person he could call on in need.She thought she had become more to him.

“Yesterday?Day before?Did he seem off?Concerned?Lost?Busy?”

She shook her head.

“You’re my best lead, Cartwright, and you’re coming up blank as a ruddy piece of paper.He didn’t bother to write anything to you?You’ve been spending nights together, haven’t you?Surely you’ve spent a few moments talking, in between the endless bouts of—“

She managed to keep from slapping him only by sweeping a hand across his desk and throwing papers to the floor.“Don’t you dare!” she cried out.“It’s not like that, and I’d give anything to know why he was out there last night!”Now it was harder to hold back the tears, impossible even, but she fought through them.“Sam keeps things to himself.”

“Yes.Like a bloody safe deposit box.But I thought you had the key.”

She drew a shuddering breath.“This—is one of those things.I could tell he was—up to something.Following some leads.He took a couple of phone calls over the last week that he seemed to be trying to keep secret.But he didn’t tell me _anything_.I don’t see him _every_ night.Sometimes not even every weekend.I have to let him do the—the things he’s going to do.”

And that was perhaps the biggest understatement of her life; she had never for a moment felt a sense of control over Sam, even as he smiled and promised to stay forever, touching her with a gentle possessiveness that made her feel light on her feet.But she didn’t _have_ him like she thought she would, didn’t own him in any sense.

Gene coughed, scrabbling through the mess on the floor.“Take a look at the notes again.” He pushed the papers toward her across the desk.

A lined, white piece of paper, handwriting she didn’t recognize.“Meet me.Tuesday night.Or the boy will die.”

The second piece of paper was a scrap, a phone number in Sam’s handwriting.

“Tell you anything?”

“Sam was in a hurry,” she said after a moment.“This is messy.”

“The other one?”

She contemplated the tidy, angular script.“Very careful.I think he spent some time thinking between each sentence.”

“That’s all?”

She groaned.“If I had the answers, Guv, you’d be the first one to know.”

He sank into his chair with a creak of leather, unscrewed the cap of the bottle on his desk and drank from it, one swallow and then a second.Fumbled a pack of cigarettes from an inside pocket and worked the lighter.His hand seemed to be trembling.She wondered; concern, or lack of sleep?Of course he cared about Sam.She had never doubted it for all the bluster and the punches.And Sam cared about Gene as well.

“Until we find some more information—“ she began.

“Yeah.”He exhaled a long smoky stream.

“The only person who can tell us what happened to Sam… is Sam.”

He cast his eyes at the ceiling.“Lord save us all.It all comes down to Gladys.”

-#-

Sam dug through the murky depths, hearing their voices calling.Sometimes it was his mum.He tried very hard to reach her, then, wanting to let her know, to warn her.There was something—someone—she needed to watch out for.But he couldn’t get through and he couldn’t get out.

“Daddy.”

“Yes, Sam?”

“Where’s mum?”

“We had to leave her for a while, son.”

“Can we go back now?”

“Not yet.You have to be patient.Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

And then the scene shifted; he didn’t know how or why, but they were about to go on holiday.It was Blackpool.He remembered his mum talking about it for ages, about how much fun he was going to have, and how he and his dad were going to ride the Ferris wheel together and she was going to take pictures of them.

He thought his mum was the most beautiful person in the world.He could tell his dad did, too, the way he looked at her, the way he came up behind her and kissed her hair.Someday Sammy wanted to be big enough to do that, too, surprise his mum and kiss her hair and have her shriek with laughter.All he could do now was hug her legs, do silly things and make her giggle.

“Ruth, darling.I’m not sure I’m going to make it this weekend.I might have to work an extra shift.”

He heard the conversation downstairs, the voices floating up the stairwell and into his room.His eyes went wide and he scurried out to the head of the stairs, where he could hear better.

“Vic!But we’ve planned this for ages!”

“I know, sweetheart, but… it’s the job.We need the money.”

“Some things are worth more than money.Sammy has never seen the ocean.And Heather said she could come with, keep an eye on him while we—“ their voices drifted off into incomprehensibility.

Sam clenched his hands on the railing.He didn’t understand why his dad was always leaving, why he couldn’t be there all the time.

-#-

“He fractured the metatarsals of both feet, the tibia and fibula of his left leg, cracked his pelvis, fractured the end of his ulna as well as several smaller bones in his left wrist…”

Gene stopped the recitation with a wave of his hand and a gulp from his hip flask.“Don’t need the gory details, doctor.”He wiped his mouth, bared his teeth.“How long will it take for him to knit up, and when will he be out of here?How soon can I get him talking sense?”

The doctor leaned back with a disconcerted air.“The details are relevant, sir.I just want you to understand how serious Mr. Tyler’s condition is and why he’s on a lot of medication at the moment.”

“And I want you to understand that there’s an investigation that he is personally involved in, that may lead to the death of a young boy.I need my DI, talking if not on his feet.”

“He seems to be having an adverse reaction to some of the medication.”

“I think ‘adverse reaction’ is his middle name!What kind of reaction, exactly, and how long will it take him to recover?”

Annie crossed her arms to keep from touching his sleeve, advising patience.It wasn’t her place, at the moment.Besides, the thought of Sam talking, making sense, sitting up in bed--If Gene could make it happen by sheer force of personality, she’d be right at his back making sure he had time and space to work his magic.

The doctor sighed and folded his arms.“Believe me, DCI Hunt, I wish I could give you all the details you desire.But we don’t know why he’s reacting this way or how best to treat him for it.It may be an allergy to a pain medication.It may be a reaction to the anesthetic used in surgery.In either case it may take time for the drugs to fully leave his system, and we really can’t take him off morphine or some other pain drugs just yet.”

“Nor do I want you to!But I need him to make some sense!”

“Sir.You can try—you have tried.You can talk to him again, now, if you like, but the man is not well and will need to stay hospitalized for some time to come.Until he’s stable.Until he can actually function.”The doctor cocked an eyebrow.

“Bollocks!He’ll talk to me; I’m his DCI.”

“Very well, then.This way?”

They walked down the hallway.Annie felt oddly distant from it all.Surreal.The whiteness, the remote politeness of the medical staff, the way that Sam, even out of anesthesia, seemed to be in an entirely different world.Gene, stomping next to her with an excess of energy, was the most real thing.His color, his smells, his louder-than-necessary voice; at least he was entirely _alive_.

Sam looked small in the bed, fretful and childlike and desperate.His eyes occasionally opened, but hadn’t really focused on anything yet.The doctor gestured them forward, and she made room for Gene as they stared down into Sam’s face.

Sam twitched.His hands—bandaged—scrabbled in the blankets.“No,” he whimpered.

Gene leaned over, put a hand to his forehead.“What?”

“Nnnno…” Sam slurred.

“Sammy.”A light slap to the side of his face.“What?”

“That… noise…” Sam’s eyes cracked open.His voice was a harsh whisper.“What’s making that noise?”His eyes darted.

Annie looked around the room.She hadn’t noticed any particular noise.There were some medical sounds, some hissing, some beeping.Voices in the corridor.Footsteps.It was a particularly quiet day, actually.“You mean the machines?”

“That noise...” he fretted, scowling.

“There’s none of that today, Sammy.”

Then, trying to distract him, to refocus him, she asked, “Do you remember what you did that day, the day at the construction site?”

Sam’s face twisted into a grimace. He shifted under the blanket, eyes closing.Eyelids bruised, mouth tight in discomfort.“No.Where—where he is.No.”

Gene clenched his hands on the bed railing and stared at them.“Supposed to get better, Sammy,” he muttered.

“Give him time,” she whispered.Gene shot her a glance; it could almost have burned.

“If there’s really a boy… if he’s really in danger.We don’t have time.”

“If there’s a missing boy, wouldn’t his mother come forward to look for him?For all we know, the notes might have been just to lure Sam out to that site.”

“Who hates Sam so much?Yes, he’s a picky pain in the arse, but…”

She pursed her lips.She wondered that herself.Detective work could gain enemies, certainly, but Sam was as fair and honest and--and honorable as anyone in the department.“Why push him into that shaft?Why didn’t this person… kill him?”

“Someone chose to do that.”

“Wanted him to hurt,” she whispered.“So.”

“He has made some enemies, then, in his brief sojourn.”

Sam groaned.“God,” he whimpered.“Why…?”

They exchanged glances.“Who was it, Sam?” Annie asked after a moment.

“Why would he ever...” gasped Sam in a desperate voice, eyes clenched tight.

Gene snorted.“Someone he knows.Someone he didn’t expect.Someone he didn’t think would do this.I suppose we should interrogate all of CID!Lord knows some of those bastards have wanted to off the bugger!”

Annie looked at Sam’s face, the agony twisting his mouth, and fisted her hands. This wasn’t fair, this wasn’t what she had expected, that day when he had promised to stay forever.She hadn’t expected more secrets, more mystery.She couldn’t speak; she was going to cry if she did.

Gene was looking at her.She turned away, fumbling in her bag for a pen, pretending to look.It would not do.No crying in front of Gene Hunt, today, even with Sam in the state he was.She would not give Gene an excuse to snipe, to comment about female DCs.

“Cartwright,” he murmured.

“Guv,” she said, and couldn’t quite hide the quaver.She gave up on the bag, fisted her hands together.

His hand closed on her shoulder.“I didn’t mean it, you know that.”

“What?”

“None of us did this to him.None of his mates.Had to be someone he nicked, someone who wanted revenge.”Gene’s hand rubbed her shoulder blade.

She bit back the tears.“But how—“

He stepped close enough to put an arm around her shoulders.“He’ll be all right.”She turned her face to his shoulder.Just for a moment.

A moment turned into half a minute and she was still fighting back the tears, Gene warm and silent next to her.She pulled back to look at his face.His expression was remote, focused on the sheets tented over Sam’s legs.

“I can’t stand it,” she whispered.

He coughed, startled from his reverie.Stared down at the floor.“We have to do our jobs.Keep working.”

It seemed a pale response; there was no conviction in Gene’s words.She tried to muster her resolve, to muster resolve for both of them.

-#-

Evening of the same day.Annie felt lost, felt heavy with exhaustion.So tired but she still couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t think about sleeping.

Sam had been quiet, they said.But now he was restless, moving uneasily in the hospital bed, tangling the lines of catheters and IVs.“Sammy,” she sighed, and tried to hold his hand still.It wasn’t the heavily bandaged wrist but she was still afraid of hurting him.

He thrashed, turned his head away from her.“Please,” he moaned, as if she had taken something from him.Something precious.“Please don’t take him.”His voice was thick with emotion.

“Darling.”She tried to capture his head, to turn him to face her.He resisted, face locked in a grimace.Then suddenly he turned, his eyes opened but didn’t see her, staring through the ceiling at something a million miles away.His breathing rattled in his throat, muscles corded in his neck as he strained, head pressed back into the pillow.

She felt Gene behind her before he made a sound.“Christ,” he said, giving voice to her appalled silence.He brushed her out of the way, took Sam’s face in his hands.“Samuel.Look at me.”

Sam’s breath came in rapid bursts.The blank catatonia of his stare made her swallow dryly.“He—he seems worse,” she managed.“I wonder what they’re… if they’ve tried different medications…”

Gene lifted Sam’s head, just a little, enough to attempt eye contact.She watched the muscles of his jaw clench.Gene’s thumb stroked Sam’s cheekbone.“ _Sam_ ,” he said.“Dorothy, quit knocking about in there.Come back now, there’s a good girl.”

Sam’s eyes remained open, staring.The medical machines in the room made their noises and Sam’s breathing stuttered.

“Shit,” said Gene.“Get a nurse.There must be something they can do.”

She hurried off down the hallway.It was quieter at night, but she found an orderly and eventually someone who could tell her that nothing had been changed with DI Tyler’s regimen.When she made her way back to his room she had to pause for a moment outside the door.She could hear Sam’s strange, uneven breathing.The hiss and beep of the medical equipment.A harsh, labored sigh that could only be Gene.

-#-

Sam was wandering.He scuffed his toes through the sand, bending now and then to pick up a rock, a piece of wood.He found a chocolate wrapper, and then a broken toy car, one wheel missing.Back up the beach his mum and Heather sat, staring out to sea, talking in hushed voices.

They talked louder when he wasn’t around.Or when they thought he wasn’t around.Heather, eyes narrowed, “You haven’t heard a word from him?”His mum, tight-lipped, “I think we both know the chances of that.”Sam knew who they were talking about.His dad had always said—he wasn’t a dummy.Smart lad.Quick.Figures things out.

Ivanhoe hadn’t come with to their new home, and dad hadn’t either.Sam had worried for a long time that he wouldn’t know where to find them.Wrote letters, trying to describe their neighborhood, but he didn’t know where to send them.When he finally asked Heather how to address the envelope, she passed it to his mum who sat him down and had a talk about how he wasn’t to worry about his dad, but he wasn’t to look for him either.

Sam still did, though.On the street, on the way to school.On the beach, in Blackpool.A solitary figure walked to the end of the pier and Sam studied his profile.

-#-

“What do you think?”Annie asked quietly.She didn’t need to be quiet, late at night in CID, when the two of them were the only ones still working, but somehow the dark of his office demanded it.

Gene jerked his head up from his hands, his expression one of slack-jawed exhaustion.He snatched up a pen, shuffled some papers.

“D’you think it’s just the medication?”

“Yeah.”He scribbled a few sentences, stared, then tossed down the pen and leaned back in his chair with a sigh of—what?

“Do you think there were changes since yesterday?”She wasn’t going to give up.

His eyes narrowed as he met her gaze at last.“Whisky?”He pulled the cork on the bottle already on his desk, collected two glasses from the mess with his other hand.

She nodded.There seemed no point in refusing, if it would get him to talk.A small measure for her, a larger one for him, and Gene leaned back in the chair again to take a hefty swallow before setting the glass down.

“I don’t think he’s going to get better.”He stared at his hand, curled around the tumbler.“… He’s not going to get better.”

She didn’t know what to say.What do you say to the man who runs on whisky, cigarettes and pure physical presence?There were times when she thought she was beginning to understand him but she couldn’t even tell what he was feeling, just now.His expressions—he used a scowl to communicate most emotions, as far as she could tell.

But his hands trembled, there, against the glass.“Fuck.”It should have been a yell, but came out as a whisper.He put his face into his hands, leaning into it.

Annie flushed.She felt her face warm, as if this was something she should not be seeing, witnessing.Gene’s breath hitched.She circled the desk and put a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t know—you couldn’t know.The doctors don’t even know.”

From behind his hands he spoke.“He’s ruined.All that crap they’ve pumped into him has stirred up his brain like a milkshake, Cartwright.”

“But… he’ll get better once he’s off them.”

“Will he?Will he even--”

She rubbed her hand across the broad plain of his shoulders, hard as flint, and when he lifted his head she bent to kiss the very top of his forehead.He made a tiny noise, and she pulled him closer against her, wrapping both arms around him.He went with it, yielding, and it felt so bizarre that he would allow himself to be vulnerable and her to be the strong one.His face turned against her belly and her arms rested around his shoulders and they remained like that for a long moment.She wondered; that he was so upset.That he could let himselfshow it to her.

Then he tilted his head back, stared into her face.He seemed to be wanting to say something; his mouth worked, silently, and then he slid a hand up around the back of her neck and pulled her down into a kiss.

She pulled back for a moment.Eyes wide, shock coursing through her.He followed her, just a little, made an eager, desperate noise against her mouth.

“Don’t—“ he whispered.

“What?”

“Don’t leave.”

“I can’t do this,” she began.

“I just want—“

“Yeah?”The hospital.Gene’s hand on Sam’s.He wouldn’t want to hurt Sam.He wouldn’t do this to hurt Sam.

“Someone,” he finished, and he let her back off, his hand trailing down her arm, gripping her fingers.

There was a time and a place, and this was neither, with Sam unreachable and—god, even when he was around it always felt like a part of him was far away.She closed her eyes.“Just someone to touch?” she asked.

“Annie.”He squeezed her fingers.And they slid into contact as if they hadn’t even stopped, Annie leaning down to him and kissing again.Once she had started she couldn’t stop, didn’t want to think about ever stopping.Even though she had the advantage of height and leverage he seemed to be taking control, setting the pace.

“Ah,” he said, breaking away for a moment with a gasp, and she took the opportunity to crawl into his lap.She worked her hands into his hair and pressed his face to her belly.He nuzzled across her shirt, then his roving hands came up and he was actually ripping her blouse open—the kind of thing she had only read about in steamy romance novels, but he was doing it. And groaning against her bra, his fingers plucking at the straps, wanting to get further.

She leaned back long enough to strip off the blouse and unhook her bra.In his lap, under her hitched-up skirt she could feel it, his… his cock.She had never wanted to think of Gene Hunt having a cock.It did not seem appropriate, given their work relationship.But now, oh fuck now, there it was, and she wanted that in her, filling her, she wanted to forget everything but this.It was wrong, it was so wrong, she couldn’t stop thinking about the wrongness.

“Don’t,” she gasped.“Don’t tell Sam.Ever.”

“No,” he groaned into her mouth, and then bit a line down her neck and licked across the skin of her breasts.His hands clasped her.His mouth burned paths across her.And just as she felt herself floating and expanding he pulled away again, meeting her eyes with his own wide and wild, seeming to ask a question.She nodded.He caught her mouth with his own, worked his hands under her skirt and up to the waistband of her tights, pulled down.His slid his hands across the bare skin of her arse.One hand worked its way under her thigh, between her legs, and she jerked against him as he touched her there where she was wet, where she wanted him.

“Oh!” she said.He lunged to his feet and heaved her up onto the desk, unhooked his belt with shocking rapidity, struggled for a moment with the zip but then had it down and his trousers lowered and leaned forward, pressing his hot cock against her.He stopped then, staring into her eyes.

“Annie?”He shuddered.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Do you need me to use a rubber?”

She had to close her eyes.“Yes.”

A rustling noise, she opened her eyes to see him ripping open the envelope with his teeth, rolled it onto himself and pressed against her with intent.She was wet, god she was throbbing for him, but he licked his fingers and rubbed them across the head of his cock and then pressed it into her.

She threw back her head.It was all just right, just fast enough, big enough, deep enough, and she could feel it building, feel herself losing the world, everything gone except this.This pressure, this intensity, this _man_ , oh god, this man, and she clenched around him and came, throwing her head back and crying out.She didn’t think she had ever come so quickly.

He paused, thrust deep inside her as she rocked her hips, riding it out.When she finally lay back, feeling for the first time some object under her lower back (a pen?) poking uncomfortably, he drew back slowly and thrust back in equally slowly.It was as if he was trying to get her attention.

“Yeah,” she breathed.“God, yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes.”

He fucked her slowly.She watched him through slitted eyes, riding his rhythm.He held her by the hips and rutted into her.He was her superior officer and this really shouldn’t be happening, but now that it was she wondered why it hadn’t before.He sped up, dragged a hand from her hip to rest on her pubic bone, and his thumb stroked and slipped against her.She was coming again, she was—she was crying out, she didn’t usually do that, but she was wired hot tonight.She was squeezing her eyes shut in pure sensory overload.And then he made a choked noise in his throat and stilled.

Each time Sam had made love to her (and it always felt like that, like it deserved that name) it had seemed like a special occasion, a wonderful vacation from reality.Because reality wasn’t like that, was it?Men didn’t treat you like that, as if they respected your mind, as if you didn’t owe them anything.As if your pleasure was as important as theirs.As if your privacy, your integrity was just as important to them as their own.In her head it was all a muddle—this thing with Gene.It was on a different level.She wanted to belong to Sam, but once this started it had seemed inevitable and with Sam there always seemed to be a part of him she couldn’t reach.

Gene stepped back from the desk, pulled up his trousers.She sat up and straightened her skirt. She expected him to avoid her eyes, make some kind of disparaging comment.Instead he seemed to be hanging on her every motion.

“Come home with me,” he said quietly, when they were both tidy.She raised an eyebrow.“Please.”

She drew a shaky breath, sitting there on the edge of his desk, feeling hot and expansive. “OK.”

-#-

The dirt.He was digging in it.Turning the dark, crumbly stuff, making holes and burying sticks.He knew his mum wouldn’t approve, but then she wasn’t there to stop him, was she?Working again.Heather would be here soon.Heather would make his tea.He loved Heather.Almost as much as he loved his mum.

There had been a time when his dad had played games with him.Those days were over.Since the day he left.Said he’d always be back, but he hadn’t come home yet.And home was a new place; Sammy always wondered how Dad would find them.Mum said he’d find a way.If he really wanted to.She said that quietly, like Sam wasn’t supposed to hear.

Sam made another row of holes in the dirt, scooping with the bent spoon.The sun was warm against the back of his neck, and then it wasn’t—a shadow cast across the dirt.

“Sam?” said a voice.Sam stuck his fingers into the dirt and held his breath.“Sammy boy?”

“Dad,” he said, and turned.

-#-

Annie woke sometime during the night, disoriented.The shadows were unfamiliar.The bed seemed—wrong.She sat up.

“Annie.”A hand touched her back, stroked her.She rolled over and worked her way back down under the blankets, facing him.“All right, love?”

“Yes, Gene.I’m fine.”She thought she was.Thought so as his hand came up to brush the hair from her face.Then a sob shook her.

“Annie,” he murmured.He pulled her closer against him and put an arm around her.It felt good, it felt warm and safe and comforting.The crying seemed impossible to deny.

“Sam,” she choked out.“I—I feel so bad for him.”

“I know,” he murmured, stroked her hair.She pressed her face closer against his shoulder, struggling with what to say, how to stop crying.How to deal with this.

He made this possible with his silence and his gentle gathering of her, his hand stroking her back in reassurance.Pressed against the length of him, aware of him, she took a deep breath of sweat and heat and smoke, sighed it back out again.

“Hmm?” he inquired.His eyes were still closed, she could see that in the darkness.How awake was he?

She pulled him closer, reached to grab his arse and press his cock against her belly.He was half hard.“Annie,” he breathed.She rolled her head up and worked her tongue into his mouth, and then he had a hand between her legs stroking and opening her.She pulled him against her, wanting so badly to just lose herself in this.The pause, when he rolled over to find a condom, could have been her opportunity to stop this, but she closed her eyes and waited.He entered her without fanfare, gently.She sighed.They moved together in the darkness for a short while, and then he rolled her onto her back and fucked her harder, deeper.She thrust up against him, rubbing herself against him and then she was coming hard and so was he, and he found her mouth with his in the darkness and kissed her while they rode it out.

It was like a dream.It was.

She woke to bright sunlight.She rolled over, feeling dim with sleep.The bed—oh yes, Gene’s bed. White sheets, a maroon eiderdown.A dresser against the wall, with an ornate mirror above it.At the sight of herself in the mirror she blushed; half naked, her breasts on display.It wasn’t right, and what would Sam think, and would she be able to keep this from him and—

The door opened.Gene was fully dressed, shirt and tie, hair brushed.He had a mug in one hand and a plate in the other.“You’re awake.”

She dragged the sheet up over herself.“Yeah.”Watched him all the way around the bed to her bedside table where he set the mug and the toast.

His eyes were grave.She couldn’t call him uncertain, but he was waiting for something.“Good morning,” she said at last.

“I have to go to work,” he said.Firmly.

“So do I…?”

“You need to go to hospital.Visit Sam again.”

She kept her eyes on him.“I know, but—if he doesn’t recognize me will it do any good?”

“You _have_ to go see him, Cartwright.If anything’ll bring him back to himself it’ll be your smiling face.He’ll expect you.He likes a nice pair of tits.”And with the hint of a smirk he looked more like himself, less like a stranger whose bed she had just slept in.“Drink your tea like a good girl, get cleaned up and dressed and get on with it.”

“Is that what you’re doing… sir?Getting on with it?”She meant it to sting, and watched his jaw clench with some satisfaction.

“Do I have a choice?”

“If anyone does.”

“No lip, my petal.Let’s just do our jobs and see if we can’t have a better day today, eh?”

There were so many questions, but she wasn’t sure it would ever be time to ask them.She thought, ruefully, that she’d have to be asking some of herself, too.Once again it was all down to Sam.

-#-

“We’re going somewhere fun, Sammy-boy.”

“Where?Blackpool?”

“No, not that far.But somewhere great.You’ll love it.”

Sam bounced on the unfamiliar car seat, shot a glance sideways at his dad.He looked happy.His hair was shorter, and he had a black jacket.He grinned whenever he looked at Sam.It was great to be with his dad again.

“What kind of fun?”

“Oh, great fun.Animals to play with, and rides, and I’ll get you some new toys.But you’ll have to wait for me.When we get there.I have to get us some food.”

“What kind of food?Can I have a Curly Wurly?”

“Yes.And ice creams.But you have to wait, first.You have to wait so I can get your mummy to come with us.”

He sat in silence and contemplated this.The car purred down the road, stopped at a light.He imagined his mum there in the car with them.There would be laughing, then.Jokes.She’d lean over and ruffle his hair.

Suddenly he wanted her touch, more than anything else; more than the sweets his dad was offering.He looked out the window and felt his eyes fill with tears.

-#-

Sam was curled up in the bed.She walked around to the side he was facing, pulled up a chair so she could see his face.They had released some of the straps; he was curled on his side, knees pulled up toward his chest.There must be some improvement, then.He seemed calmer, more at peace, although his expression was blank, his eyes mere slits in his sagging face.

“Sam,” she said quietly.She slid her fingers under his, careful not to disturb the IV taped to the back of his hand.“Sammy.Darling—can you hear me?”

He didn’t react.

“How much medication is he on?”

“He’s still heavily medicated.He’s had a lot of pain, and we can’t take him off it too quickly.He seems to know when people are around, anyway.You can talk to him.”The nurse seemed nervous around Sam.She straightened the sheet over his feet, then walked to the door.

“I’ll leave you then, shall I?”

“Yes.Please.”

Footsteps echoed down the hall as she retreated.Annie stared searchingly into Sam’s face, rubbing his fingers gently in her own.“Sam.We really need to talk.We need you to—to explain what you were doing.Can you hear me, sweetheart?Sammy?”Her voice quavered.

His eyes blinked.

“Are you in there?”

His lips moved.She leaned in close, a tear tickling her nose as it ran down to the tip.“Aaa…”

She squeezed his fingers.“Yes, it’s me.”

“…nnnie.”

She rubbed his hand compulsively as her eyes closed in sheer, delirious relief.

“Make her go… away.”

“Who?The nurse?”Visions of the heavy, matronly woman hurting Sam, being rough with his unresponsive limbs, flashed through her mind.

“No,” he whispered.“Her.The… the girl.”

“What girl, Sam?”

“The… telly girl.My… my… head.”

Annie drew a deep breath.“Yes, Sam.She’s in your head.Only you can make her go away.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and a tremor shook his body.“Help… me.”

“I—don’t know how, Sam.”

“She said that—that they really mean it, that they really will kill him, and—and they _can’t_!” His voice quavered, words tumbling out of him, his face screwing up.“I don’t know what will happen to me if they kill him!And—what about… what will… she… can she go on without him?”

“Shhh, hush Sam!It’s OK!Just tell me one thing at a time, darling.Who is she?Who said this?”Her eyes filled with tears.

“Telly girl…”

“And who are they going to kill?”

“…Me…”

“But you said something about a little boy.What little boy?”

“That’s me.The one that’s me.You saw him, Annie, at—the wedding.When—you were in the red dress, and I had to make sure, I had to be sure, only it all turned out wrong.It wasn’t supposed to be that way!He was supposed to stay!”His words became a wail of misery.He writhed in the bedsheets.

“Sam!Dearest…” she placed a hand against his cheek and he stilled, shuddering, his eyes finding hers.“What do you know about the little boy?Is he in danger?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t know.”

“How can we find him?”

“…Dad…”

“His father?Do you know his father?”

His face contorted.“Vic.”

“Vic who?”She leapt to the obvious conclusion.“Vic Tyler?”

He nodded, pressing the side of his face into the sheets, screwing up his face in pain.

-#-

“You have to stay here.”

Vic sounded serious.He almost looked mad.Sam stared down at his own feet, heels dragging in the dirt, and felt his lip quivering.

“Sammy.I mean it.You’ve got to stay here while I—go take care of some business.When I come back I’ll have a present for you.Something new.All right?”

Sam felt tears overflow and run down his cheeks.“I was alone for a long time!” he whimpered.

“You’re a big lad, right?Almost six.That’s old enough to stay alone for a while.You have that package of pink wafers; you’ll be OK.You have to be quiet, though.Can you do that?”

Sam turned his head away, stared around the gloom of the shed.He had a blanket, and his few toys, his bucket of water.He had some sticks.He wanted to walk up the hill and see what was on the other side but his dad had told him to stay put.He didn’t want his dad to leave again.Didn’t want to give him reason to leave.

If only his mum was here.This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.He wanted his bed.He wanted his mum to make tea.He wanted his home.

-#-

CID hummed along with a burble of conversation, Chris laughing at a joke, Vince on the phone with a serious expression, Ray shuffling some paperwork with a sour look on his face.Annie felt embarrassed, as if they could see where she had spent the night.

She slipped through the room and into Gene’s office like a shadow—or so she hoped.It was so hard, all of a sudden, to just be the person she had always been.Clever Annie Cartwright, WDC, with the ability to understand the minds of men.She almost laughed at that.This was not the way she had imagined her career progressing; sleeping with a superior officer?With two superior officers, she reminded herself, and bit her lip.

Gene lifted his head slowly.There were dark circles under his eyes.

“What?” he growled.“What?”

“Sam knew me,” she said in a rush.Gene stared into her face unblinking, and then dropped his face into his hands.He scrubbed vigorously.“Gene?”

“Yeah.All right,” he muttered into his hands, pressed his fingertips hard against his eye sockets, then sat back in his creaking chair and gestured for her to continue.

“He said my name!And there’s more.He said something that might lead us somewhere.”

“He did?” Gene rasped.His eyes seemed to light up.

And suddenly she realized she was going to have to explain something that she barely accepted herself.Had Sam ever mentioned to Gene that he thought Vic was his father?Well, it wasn’t as if Gene didn’t already admit to all and sundry that he thought Sam was barmy.Gene was staring at her.

“Remember when Vic Tyler was involved with the case of the Morton brothers?” she began.

He snorted.“Involved?Vic Tyler _was_ the case, as I recall.Tyler was absolutely off his rocker on that one.Called Vic ‘dad’ the first moment he saw him.”

She sighed.“Well, yes.He… um.He.Thought.He used to think that he was from the future.And that Vic—“

“Lord.”Gene fumbled for a cigarette.“I know.A complicated case, our mad DI.Thinks he’s from the future.Thinks a man younger than him is his dad.Doesn’t mean Vic isn’t involved again, does it?”

Her jaw dropped.“Do you believe him?”

“Doesn’t matter, does it?He stopped talking about that stuff.Been on the straight and narrow for a while now.But…we’ve completely lost contact with Vic Tyler.We have absolutely no idea where he went.How the bloody hell are we supposed to find him?”

“Pull in anyone he used to work with?”

“There’s his wife.He had a family, before he left town.Sam went to talk to ‘em more than once.”

She flushed.“Yeah, uh, Sam thought—“ This was harder than she had expected.

“That she was his mum.I know.”Gene stared over her head as he took a long drag.

“And he said she moved.After the Morton case.He lost track of her.”

“Could do that easily, even in the city limits.”

“If Vic left his wife and abducted some boy, how can we assume that she knows anything about it?”

“No assumptions, petal.We work with facts.And my gut tells me that she’s our best lead.”

“So we go through city records?What?”

“We’ve got an office full of detectives sharper than a box of pencils, Cartwright.We send ‘em out on the street.And we follow up on any abduction leads in the last fortnight.”He sat up straighter, stubbed out the last of his cigarette and reached for the bottle of Bell’s.

“All right.”

“And we keep pushing Sam.”He put a hand on her wrist, his thumb caressed the side of her arm for a moment before releasing her to open the bottle.

She sat unmoving for a moment.“Yeah,” she said.“I’ll visit Sam this afternoon and see if he’s—“better?Himself again?“Still talking sense.”

-#-

It was a long, full day, and Annie had spent at least half of it in the Cortina with Gene.They quartered the city, checking on a lead here, a possible sighting there.In the previous fortnight there had actually been five abductions, although three of them had been older females.The remaining two were young boys but one of the two was found several days later staying at a friend’s house unbeknownst to the parents of said friend.The location of the other was still unknown, and still keeping parts of CID very busy, but clearly had nothing to do with the Tyler case because the motive of the mother was as clear as day; she had even told a friend that she would take her son and leave if her man didn’t stop his evil ways.

Annie no longer cared.It was hard to bring herself to pay attention to some other case.At least at the end of the day Gene could turn the Cortina down Oxford Road, pull up in front of St. Mary’s.The two of them could walk in the doors together, past the nurses’ station and down the hallway, waving a hello to several familiar faces.But they were too focused to spend any time chatting.Gene’s strides lengthened as they turned a corner and approached Sam’s ward.She ran a few steps to catch him, and a voice called her name.

It was one of the orderlies.“Miss Cartwright.Just wanted you to know…” she didn’t care.She didn’t really hear him, brushing off his words, watching Gene disappear between the beds.She just wanted to see Sam, to hear him speak, to know he was still really Sam.

A few moments later she was able to make her escape.She pushed through the doors into the ward, quiet, lights dimmed.Gene was at Sam’s bedside, seated.He was bent, his forehead pressed to Sam’s hand, clutched between his own.She stopped and watched, fascinated.

Sam looked up and saw her.He knew her, was aware and thinking.His mouth moved.“Gene,” he said.Gene looked up into Sam’s face.She didn’t know what to call that expression, but she knew what it wasn’t; it wasn’t rough affection, or relief, or the satisfaction of having a colleague recovering.It was something else entirely.

-#-

Days remained busy.Annie caught Ray watching her, once in a while.She hoped it was just because she was assuming more responsibility, because he was jealous or angry or both.She hoped it wasn’t suspicion but she didn’t have time or energy to waste on caring.They had a full roster of cases, and still the puzzling lack of an abducted boy, no further notes and no worried mother coming forward.

She ended up at Gene’s house every evening.Sometimes it was because he invited her into his car with a proprietary wave and she couldn’t bring herself to say no.Sometimes it was because she drove herself, wondering along the way why she wasn’t driving home to her own flat.She thought, once or twice, about sleeping on his sofa rather than in his bed, but couldn’t make herself do it.It was all assumption and need and she didn’t even want to start analyzing this—if she started she didn’t think she’d ever stop.It was completely different to her nights with Sam, when he’d always ask if it was OK, if he could come in.If he could stay.

And Sam seemed to emerge from a cloud in fits and starts, as he put together full sentences and asked vague questions about where and why, but never produced full answers.

“I don’t remember,” he said one day, as she sat by his bedside.

Annie put her hands on hips.It was getting harder by the moment to reason with him, and it had never been easy.

“You told us,” she began, slowly, “That it was Vic.He had abducted a boy.”

“But he’s gone.Vic left town.How could he—“

“People travel,” she snapped.

Sam turned his head away.“I don’t know where he went!” he snarled.“How could I?I’ve been in hospital for—what, days?Weeks?Before that—“His face went blank, then guarded.

“Sam…”

He rolled to face the wall, grunting with pain.“Call the nurse.I need my pills.”

“Sam!”It was a tone she had never used before with him, and he flinched.“How did you fall down that hole?”

“I tripped,” he said to the wall, his voice thick.“I tripped.And I fell…”

“Why are you hiding things from me?”

“I’m not.Why can’t you be nice to me?I’m ill!I’m hurt!All I want is my mum!”

“Why do you want your mum, Sam?Didn’t you tell me she was dead?Long gone?”

He rolled back to face her, eyes already wet.“Yeah.She died.Died when I was a boy.”His shoulders shook.

She sighed.“I’m sorry, Sam.I’m just trying to help.I’m trying to figure out why Vic would do this to you.”

“Because I took her from him!”

She cocked her head.“Her?”

“My mum!”

“You—what?”

“I took Ruth away from him!I made it impossible for him to stay!It’s my fault!”His face contorted in a rictus of pain.

“Sam, he did that to himself.He was involved in illegal activities.You couldn’t possibly have made him do that.”

He twisted in his bed, all peevishness and pain and impatience, and she wanted to grab his face, hold him still and make him meet her eyes.It was hard, being frustrated with Sam.She hadn’t thought about how much illness would change him.It was such a reversal in their roles—although, she reflected, from his first day at CID he had needed a little looking after.

She smiled wryly.“Sam.”She caught his hand, held it in both of hers.Kissed his knuckles gently.“You’re getting better, you know.”

He heaved a huge breath, started to speak and then just let it sigh out.Relaxed against the pillows, watching her.The tension seemed to drain from him.His legs twitched under the blankets, but she could see him working at it, finding a small amount of serenity.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

“For what?”

“For—“ he made a gesture with his bandaged left hand.“Getting hurt.Being—not myself.”

“It’s not your fault, darling.”

He frowned.“It is.I should have… talked to you.Before.”

“You tell me things when you’re ready to.That’s fine.”

“I should have told you where I was going.”

She looked at the floor, then back at his face.“Yes, you should have.”

“It’s just so hard, Annie.Sometimes—I don’t know how to say the things I should.Sometimes it’s easier to just _do_ …”

That didn’t seem to be his modus operandi, she thought dispassionately.“What are you talking about?”

“I—don’t you ever just—act.Because it feels like the right thing to do.Because it’s what you _want_ …”

She looked down at her shoes.It was odd to feel defensive around an invalid—around Sam.Not comfortable and not familiar.She shot him a glance; he was staring at her earnestly.Not aggressively, but as if he really wanted to know the answer.She thought of Gene’s office, and how wrong it had seemed, in retrospect, yet how _right_ at that moment.Did Sam know?Was he telling her, in his own way?

“Yes,” she said at last.“Sometimes I just act.”

“Well then,” he responded.“You know.”

“Yeah.I know.”She wondered what they were talking about.She wondered when it would matter, when she would have to start making some hard decisions.

-#-

“Daddy!”Sam rushed to hug Vic’s legs, smashing his face into the familiar smell.Dusk had fallen, the evening thick with shadows.Birds called among the trees.

“Hey, Sammy-boy.”Vic tugged him free.“I brought you a sandwich.”He shook out the blankets and made a little seat for the two of them, then produced the wax-paper wrapped packages.Sam took eager bites of his, not even caring what was in it.It had been a long day and his belly felt hollow.

“We’re going to have to stay here for a little longer, Sammy.Do you think you can do that for me?”

Sam turned away, still chewing, and felt an uncomfortable lump in his throat.He had been so quiet for so long, and so alone.Nothing had ever been like this before.

“I need to get your mum to come with us, but she’s not answering her phone.I need to go see her tomorrow.Then we’ll go to Blackpool, I promise.”

Sam choked down the last bite of sandwich.He wanted to cry.The tears were in his eyes already.He had thought that when his dad came back everything would be perfect.But it was all wrong.

-#-

“He really can go home?”Annie was incredulous, but the matronly nurse seemed unperturbed.

“He really can, love.”She pushed the wheelchair to the edge of the sidewalk and parked it.“You have his medications and the instructions.He’s off the worst of it so you shouldn’t have any trouble with him.Of course you should call if his condition worsens.He needs to stay off his feet, mind!The doctor will want to see him back in five days in any case.”She tweaked Sam’s cheek.“Goodbye Mr. Tyler.”

Annie watched her stride decisively back through the hospital doors.She felt at a loss.Two weeks.Long enough to become accustomed to daily hospital visits, to the routines, the sights, the smells.The bustle of attendants caring for Sam, bringing him food and changing his bandages.

“I want to go back to my flat.”Sam sounded mulish, childish, but she knew it was his exhaustion or pain speaking.She heaved a breath.How were they going to get through this?Even in the bright sunlight he looked like a shadow of a man, curled in the wheelchair like a boy.

“Well, you’re not.You’re coming to mine,” she said, trying to make it sound matter-of-fact.“You need nursing, Sam, and there’s no way I’m getting you up the stairs at your place.”

His eyes widened a little.“Yours?”She instantly thought of the last time he had been there, and her face flushed—Sam naked and rampant, spreading her open, touching her as if he had never seen anything so glorious…

“So they’ve finally let him out!” Gene growled from behind her.“Done malingering, Tyler?”

“I thought I’d take him to my place,” she began.

“No.You’re both coming to mine.”His tone brooked no argument.“Here, Sam—put your arm over my shoulder—“ He didn’t wait for Sam to respond but had him out of the wheelchair and in the Cortina’s passenger seat with an astounding absence of fuss.It was as if he had trained to lift injured bodies.Which, Annie reflected, he might have, in National Service. It wasn’t hard to picture now that she had seen him in action.

“But…” she finally said.

“Look.”Gene seemed happy to use his overwhelming physical presence as he crowded her back a step.“Mine has plenty of room.A bedroom on the ground floor, with a lavvy next to it.A full-size kitchen.Just a few steps to the front door.And there’s room for both of you—I reckon you and I will have our hands full with grumpy guts, there… even if he is in his right mind again.”

“No!”

“Are you really disobeying a direct order from your superior officer, Cartwright?”

“I’m telling you it’s a daft idea!You want me—you want Sam _and_ me to move in with you?”She had been hoping that the respite of caring for Sam at her own flat would give her some space to figure out where to go from here.Now, with Gene larger than life and close enough to overwhelm all five of her senses all she wanted to do was walk away from both of them long enough to catch her breath.

“I made my case.”

“But I have a flat!And so does Sam, for that matter—“

“Which he’s not going to be living in by himself anytime soon.Do you want to nurse him back to health in that shitehole, or do you want to be in my spacious home where I can share the burden?What do you think he’s going to be like in a day or two?”

She bit back her instant response, (“I have no damned idea”) and settled for glaring at Sam, draped limply in the passenger seat.She had no idea.She was afraid of what he would be like, truth be told.She had known him for a year and a half, now, and he had never been predictable.Sometimes consistent in his peculiarity, yes, but always capable of turning her world upside down.Perhaps this was going to be one more example of the same.She grew cold at the idea of Sam silent and suffering in his bed while she tried to cook him up something decent in that tiny kitchen.It would be good to have a shoulder to… to cry on, when things got weird.

“I can’t argue with that,” she said at last, knowing that it was true.“But do you think it’s right for me to be there?”The unspoken questions crowded her mind; will I sleep in your bed again?With you?With Sam?Will he still have me?

“You saw him—weak as a kitten.He’s going to need a lot of help, Cartwright.Female help.And male, too—reckon he won’t want you helping him to the loo.”

“No, that’s yours.I could come by every day with food…” She thought about quiet nights in her own bed, and absurdly she quailed at the thought.

“Waste all that time getting to and from?Think again.We need to be a team on this.”

“I don’t think it’s right.”She met his eyes at last.“Guv.”

He wore one of his most stubborn expressions; she knew it well.“Bollocks.You just don’t think you can resist my manly charms.”

“Maybe I don’t want to resist your manly charms.”

“Well then…”

“But what about—“ she shot a glance at the car.

Gene sighed, exasperated.“We’ll deal with that as we’re able, Cartwright.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared off down the street.“All right,” she said suddenly.It was, in so many ways, the best solution.It was simply not the easiest.

-#-

Gene carried Sam from the car to the house.Annie opened the door for them, followed them in, saw Sam settled on the sofa.His eyes were sagging closed.

“Should we put him to bed?” she wondered.

“S’too early,” Sam muttered, not opening his eyes.

“You’re half asleep already.”

“No.”

She put her hands on her hips and gave Gene a stern back-me-up look.

“Let him sleep here, for now.He’ll wake up in half an hour and we’ll have tea.”It seemed like a concession, but Gene gave her a look in return and gestured toward the kitchen.She followed him with a scowl.

“Don’t you think we should put him in a proper bed where he won’t wake up stiff and sore?”

“You talked to the doctors, Cartwright!Don’t you think he’s going to be stiff and sore no matter where he gets some kip?”

Annie snorted.“Where’s your tea, then?”

“Give over.”Gene pulled out two kitchen chairs, settled in one of them.“We’ve got time for a talk.”

“Fine.”She seated herself, crossed her legs, crossed her arms.Met his gaze levelly.“Why’d you want us both here, then?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She rolled her eyes.“You’re our superior officer.We have to do what you say.”

“Then do it!Stay here, take care of Gladys!Make me dinner!”

“Sleep in your bed?With Sam downstairs?” she snapped.

“If you like, yes.”

“Is that what you’d like?”

“Petal, I’ve learned that it doesn’t really matter what I like.I take what I can get, same as the rest of the blokes out there.If I—“ he clenched his hand on the table.“If all I get is a pint and a game of darts at the end of the day, then so be it.I’d like more, yeah.I had more.”His gaze wandered to the kitchen window.“But you know how it is, in this line of work.Not a lot of people want to put up with me.”

“Sam and I—“ she started, then stopped, not sure how to finish the sentence.

He sighed heavily.“I am not trying to steal his bird.The damned thing happened.What do you suggest we do?”

Her hands twisted together in her lap.She stared at her knotted fingers.“Maybe,” she said carefully, “I should go back to my flat.”

“I told you, no.”

“Maybe I should sleep on the settee.”

“There’s no room.”

“Maybe I should sleep with Sam!”

He snorted, turned in his chair to look down the hall.“That’s certainly your prerogative.That what you want?”

She stood up abruptly, walked to the counter to fetch the kettle and then to the sink.“I don’t know why you feel it’s necessary to put all of us in an impossible position.”

“Because I’m a demanding bastard.”

She turned to hide her grin.“You’re worse than that.”

“Yes.”He got up from his chair and came up behind her.“When there’s something I want, I take it.What does that make me, petal?”

His lips grazed the back of her neck.She braced both hands on the edge of the sink, breathing out unevenly.Every objection she had seemed to flee when he touched her.“God, I don’t know,” she managed.

“You have to stay here,” he whispered into her hair.“You have to help me with Sam.”

It was only the mention of his name that gave her strength to jerk away and turn on the kettle.

-#-

Raised voices in the house, drifted out to the garden.Sam scratched in the dirt.

His mum was angry.

Scratched in the dirt.

Noises.Anger, yelling, and then a door slamming.A series of thuds, descending.Silence.

Sam drove his spoon into the black soil and made his marks.

A shadow fell across him.

-#-

After dinner they settled in quietly, a somewhat surreal domesticity.Gene had a smoke, offered whisky.“None for you, Gladys.Wouldn’t want you to overdose.”

“I’m fine.”Sam looked half-asleep already, slumped in the largest chair with his feet up on a stool.Better, some color in his face, some appetite, although he still couldn’t stomach a large portion.

Gene turned on the telly and they watched the evening news.Annie sipped the whisky he had poured for her; she was no connoisseur, but it was good, smooth, settling in her belly with a burn.It was a habit that had rubbed off on her rather easily, she reflected.Perhaps that meant it was dangerous.

Gene finished his, poured another finger.The news ended and a nature show began.

“D’you think he’s managing?” he asked all of a sudden.

“Managing what?”

“Just… mentally.Is he better?”

“He’s not as confused,” she suggested.“That seems like a good sign.Although he still can’t remember much from that night.”

“Seems daft, not being able to remember why he was out there.”

“Actually it can be a common symptom after a serious injury.There’s a certain amount of amnesia that happens just to protect the individual from the trauma of remembering,” she rattled off, at the same time preternaturally aware of his hand touching her shoulder as he rested his arm on the back of the sofa.“What are you doing?”

“Annie.”His fingers ghosted across the back of her neck.“Come here.”

She glared.“Really?” she whispered.“That easy for you?”In the chair Sam snorted, his head thrown back in sleep.

Gene looked pointedly at Sam.“He’s sleeping.”

“I know! But—“Her protests were cut short as Gene leaned forward, green eyes burning into hers, and she could tell he was going to kiss her, and she could tell she was going to kiss him back and--

Sam sat bolt upright with a shriek.“What is it??” He stared around the room, teeth chattering.“What the fuck is it?”Heaved himself almost to his feet until his leg buckled.Gene leapt to his feet and caught him as he went to one knee.On the television a peacock walked slowly across a lawn and stopped again to call.

“Oh god,” moaned Sam, transfixed.

“Sam!”Gene shook him, none too gently.“Oi!It’s on the telly, you daft bugger!It’s not real!”

“No.I—“He closed his eyes with a grimace, cords standing out in his neck.“It—it just made me…”

“Did you remember something?” she asked quickly.

“I—when I was a boy.When—“ his eyes flew open.“When my dad took me away.I was in a dark place.I was so scared. And…”He whispered.“There was that _noise_ …”

Annie stroked a hand down his back.“The peacock?”

“I have this memory,” he choked. “I wanted my mum.I wanted her so badly, and she was gone.There was just… him.”

Gene’s eyes narrowed.“Vic?”

“Yeah.Him.”Sam shuddered.He pressed his head into Gene’s shoulder, his hands clutching, and Gene—held him closer, supporting.Comforting, she thought.He’s comforting his colleague.Gene leaned his cheek against the top of Sam’s head, one hand stroking the length of his back.

“OK, Sammy?” he asked after a moment.

Sam’s voice was thick when he answered.“Yes.”He sniffed. His hands fisted in Gene’s shirt, pulling him even closer.

Gene’s arms around Sam seemed possessive, encompassing.She felt the ghost of Gene’s fingers against the back of her neck and wondered if this was just Gene’s way of owning his DI and his WDC as well.But surely he wasn’t in the habit of taking all of the members of CID into his bed.Surely she was the exception rather than the rule.

“Time you were in bed,” Gene announced, helping Sam to his feet and then scooping him up in his arms.Sam sighed but didn’t protest, and she followed them down the short hall to the spare bedroom.

“Should one of us stay with him?” she wondered.

Gene didn’t bother answering as he unbuttoned Sam’s shirt and slipped it free, and then shook out the sheets and blankets.

“I’ll stay with him.”

“Will you.”

Sam’s eyes were already closed.“Yes, I think someone needs to.”

“Well then.Call me if you need me.”Gene left with one sharp glance, and she sighed and went in search of her nightgown.

-#-

Sam woke her at some point, twitching and pulling the covers.

“Try to sleep, Sam.”

He rolled again, stifling a groan.“C-c-can’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

“D-d-don’t know.”She put a hand on his shoulder; his skin was cold.

“You’re freezing.Come on, you need to get warmed up.”She wrapped her arms around him from behind.He shuddered in her embrace, clammy despite the heavy layers of blankets.

Pressing her sleep warm legs against his, her breasts against his back, felt like an echo of times before.Times when he would have been initiating contact, taking control.But now he lay passive and shaking in her arms.She realized he was crying only when he choked back a sob.

“Oh Sam.”She stroked the side of his head.“What do you need, love?”

He gasped, made a desperate, miserable noise, and continued to shake in her arms.

A moment later there was a noise from the kitchen, the snap of a light switch, and Gene loomed in the doorway.“What’s wrong?”

“Where did you come from?”

“Settee.What’s wrong with Sam?”

“He’s cold.”

Gene eased the door almost closed and walked around to the other side of the bed.

“Budge over, then.”

Sam muttered something, Annie couldn’t tell what.The bed creaked again as Gene sat on the edge, and then he was leaning over, speaking so softly that she didn’t catch his words over the rustling of the sheets.

“… daft bastard.Can’t say what you want, can you? _Sam_.”Gene leaned over further, put a hand to Sam’s head, stroking his hair.And then Annie wanted to pinch herself.Had he just kissed Sam?Sam made a noise, a choked word she couldn’t identify.Gene chuckled.“Make some room.This is my house; I’m not sleeping on the settee, done that enough already.”

They settled in again.Sam’s shivering slowly abated; Annie pressed herself against the full length of him, feeling him slowly ease.Gene reached across to put a hand around her shoulder, pull her closer until he was hugging them both.

“This,” whispered Sam.“I w-w-want this.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Don’t leave me alone.”

“We won’t,” she whispered.

“What…” he said, softly, “What about my mum?”

“Your mum?”

“She’s missing.”

“Where does she live?”

“I don’t know.She’s going away.Every day.”

Annie pressed her face into his shoulder.Was this a return of his delusions?He didn’t usually talk about his mum; she had wondered, on occasion, if she’d ever have the privilege of being introduced to the woman.

“She’s never there anymore.In my memories.I’m in some of the same places, but she isn’t.Oh god, what happened to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s just—it’s not her anymore.I feel so sick.”

“You’re here, Sam,” said Gene, a soft rumble.“Now go to sleep.That’s an order.”

Sam breathed out slowly, unevenly.“Yes, Guv.”

-#-

It was weird how the most vivid parts of her days seemed to be the nights.Work was a whirlwind of cases, paperwork and pounding the pavement.Evenings, when they were both home with Sam… those fell into a routine, as well.But nights.Annie woke in Gene’s bed, again, when Sam seemed like he was deeper in sleep.He often drifted off quite early, right after dinner, and barely surfaced when Gene picked him up and carried him to bed.She tried not to think about where to sleep, or why.

She woke.At first all she could hear was Gene’s snore from the other side of the bed, and then another sound.A muffled cry.She slipped out of bed and into the hall.

A gasp, from downstairs, and then a ragged moan.She felt her way down the dark stairs to Sam’s doorway, the door ajar.There was silence for long enough that she doubted herself.And then movement, sheets rustling.

“Mum,” said Sam hoarsely.“Wh-where are you?”

She pushed the door open.The room felt close, darker than the bedroom upstairs.The curtains were heavy and there was a faint medicinal odor.She was suddenly, achingly aware of Sam, of how alone he was even here in this house, sleeping in a bed not his own (although surely the foldaway would have killed him in his condition).His heat permeated the air.

“Sam?” she whispered.He didn’t answer.After a moment he thrashed again, kicking his legs under the covers.He exhaled on a groan.

She captured his left hand, pressing the fingers against her cheek when he let her.“Sammy,” she said, a little louder.“You’re having a nightmare.”

“Oh, god,” he groaned.

“Sammy!”She let his hand go and captured his face between her hands.“Wake up.Sam.”His eyelids flickered.He looked so lost, so young, despite the stubble on his face.So like he had in those first days at CID when he seemed to be floundering, confused and yearning for something.She pressed her lips to his.

His eyes opened.He stared, slack-faced for a moment and then kissed her back, hungrily.She closed her eyes and sank into him.“Oh my darling,” she whispered.“Are you OK?”

“Mmm,” he responded.He twined his arms around her, urging her closer.She hitched herself onto the bed, pressing against his hip, leaning over to meet his eager kisses.He fumbled, one hand twining in her hair, the other grasping her hand, pulling it down toward his—

She broke off.“Sam,” she gasped.“Are you… you really want me to—“

“Please,” he muttered.He pushed his clothing aside one-handed.

“You feel well enough?”

“Does this feel like I’m well enough?”He pressed her hand to his cock; it was hot against her hand.She stroked down the length of it, closing her eyes in the dark, trying not to think.She had been doing far too much thinking recently.Sam covered her hand with his, urged her on.

“Wait.”She crawled onto the bed and slung a leg over him.His cock was hard, hot against her.

“This doesn’t hurt you?” she asked even as she took him in hand.God, she didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to hurt him…

“No, it’s good, it’s—fuck, it’s been so long… oh _Annie_ …”

She had to ease her way.It was just as well; he moaned and choked it back, whimpered, and she wasn’t sure if it was all pain or pleasure.She really didn’t want to stop, wanted him inside her.She had him inside her.He groaned as if it was wrung from him, as if she was twisting his arm up behind his back.For all the noise, for all the uncertainty, he still clung to her as if he wanted it.And he was hard.He was moving as much as he could manage, urging her on with his hands, clasping her thighs.Sliding one hand between her legs, stroking her there, moaning her name again.

She pressed hard against him, kissing, stopping his moans with her mouth, wondering if Gene could hear them from upstairs…It was all so fast, Sam was thrusting as hard as he could, a gasp with every thrust, seemingly frantic to merge with her.She met him, grinding down, hands fisting in the sheets when Sam arched up into her, crying out, and she shook apart with him.

They lay pressed together long after their breathing had slowed.Sam’s hand had stroked her shoulder and eventually stilled; she thought he had drifted off until his voice broke the silence.

“You’re still mine, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are we… together?”

“Sam.”She kissed him; he allowed it for a moment then drew back to stare at her in the darkness.

“I just want to know.Are you mine or are you Gene’s?”

She lay still, waiting.Waiting for words to come.When they didn’t she took a stab at it anyway.“You’ve noticed.”

“I could hardly fail to hear you going up and down the stairs now, could I?”His tone was cold.

“I love you,” she said after a long pause in which nothing else presented itself.

“Yes.I recall hearing that before.”

She lay quiet in his arms for some time after that.Somehow it was too hard to try to explain, in the post-coital darkness of his room—his room in Gene’s house, that she had never meant to be unfaithful.What could she say that would make it all better?She couldn’t undo a thing.

-#-

Sam ran faster than Heather, pelting down the beach.He laughed until he hiccoughed, until he staggered and slipped to a stop, letting the sand squish through his toes.The waves crashed, and Heather’s footsteps hurried up behind him.

“Sammy!”She caught him up in a fierce hug.

“Heather.”He twisted around in her arms, flung his around her neck.“I love you, Auntie Heather.”

“You can call me mum, baby boy.It’s all right.Just call me mum.”

-#-

She woke on the settee, a crick in her neck and sand in her eyes.She rubbed them, blinking, remembering the night before.Crawling out of Sam’s bed once he had fallen asleep.Retreating to the living room, staring into the darkness with dry eyes.

A murmur of voices from the kitchen.“What do you want for breakfast, then?” Gene asked Sam.

There was a long pause.She could imagine him sitting slumped and pitiful in his wheelchair.Why was that so easy to imagine?Peevish invalid Sam, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for someone to feed him.But then he wasn’t sleeping well, was he?

After a pause long enough for her to think to herself, “Bloody hell”, he responded.“Don’t care.Nothing too hot.Nothing cold.Something soft.Tasty.”A long pause.“Kippers?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

A huge, long-suffering sigh.“Kippers.Toast. Marmalade.Not that shitty stuff you bought.”At least Sam sounded more awake, though Annie could see that one might want to trade back for semi-comatose Sam if these moods continued.

“Kippers it is, then.You want tea?”

“Yes.” Clipped, testy, with an unspoken “Of course, you wanker” that hung in the air like a bad odor.

Breakfast noises.Water filling the kettle, the clink of cutlery.The atmosphere was tense enough to cut with a knife.It didn’t take long to put together two plates with toast and kippers and some jars of stuff, or to set the table, and then they were left to deliberately not confronting whatever issue hung in the air while the kettle roared quietly to itself.

She lay listening to the noises, the kettle’s whistle, the small sounds of plates and knives.She should get up and join them, really, but it was easier to spend this time by herself, answerable to no one for at least the length of a meal.Her eyes felt dry and her head felt heavy.What was she ever going to do when Sam was well enough to move back to his flat?

There were footsteps and another jumble of dish noises and then the squeak of a chair.“Alright then.What the fuck is it?” said Gene in tones of authority.

Sam’s peevish voice.“Nowt.”

“Don’t give me that shite.Talk to me.”

“Nothing to say.”

“Sam Tyler.You can’t get away from me, you stubborn git, so give over now.Tell me whatever piece of whinging sop you’ve got to say and let me fix your problems.”

Annie turned her head, listening, trying not to breathe.

“Yeah,” Sam finally said.“Heard you two.Before.I know Annie’s been sleeping with you.Know where I stand.Or don’t stand.”It was a pathetic excuse fora joke.

“Fuck, Sam.Don’t pull this self-pity act.”

“Fuck you!”

“Snap out of it, arsehole!”

“You don’t know anything!”

“Bloody hell, Tyler, are you crying like a girl?”

“No!I’m crying like a man!”

Gene heaved a huge, exasperated sigh and banged some dishes around for a few minutes, gave Sam time to pull himself together.

“Look, Gladys,” he began.“I—she still loves you.She does, you little twat.I’m not made for that kind of—“ There was a long pause.“I’m not good enough for her, and that’s the truth.It’s you, if you’d get your head out of your arse and pull yourself together.”

“Gene,” Sam’s voice was gravelly with tiredness.“Please.Fuck off.”

“Not until you—“

“So you like kissing Annie but she doesn’t deserve you, eh?What about me?”

“I just said—“

“You like girls, now?Lost your taste for a manly piece of cock?”

“Hell, Tyler.”

“What is this about, really?All this sleeping with Annie.Yes, I know she’s been upstairs with you, how could I not?”

Silence again.

“Gene.For fuck’s sake, what do you want me to do?”

“Just—“ Gene swallowed again.“Just tell me what you think should happen.”

“Christ, how should I know?I don’t know what the two of you get up to, upstairs.”

She had become so used to Sam’s invalid weakness that she had forgotten he wasn’t weak.She had forgotten what his fight was like, his tendency to push Gene.Now she held her breath and listened to the edge in his voice and wondered at herself.The things she had just heard.The things she wished she could say.

“Fuck, what do you want from me?”

“What I had before, maybe!Something!Anything!”

“You—“ Gene growled.“That’s what you want?”

“I did.I do.But it… after I…”

“You started walking out with Cartwright.”

“Yeah.”Sam’s tone had softened.“I didn’t know what to do.And then… now _you’ve_ started walking out with Cartwright.”

There was a choking noise.“Jesus Christ, Tyler, how the bleeding hell did we get ourselves in this mess?”

They were both laughing.She slid quietly off the sofa and took a step toward the kitchen.

A chair was dragged across the floor. “Right.So, is this better?”Gene sounded calmer now.“You’re serious about this?Will this help you get your girly knickers out of a twist?”

“Take me seriously.”

“Oh, I am.”

The room was quiet.She took another few steps, avoiding any creaking floorboards.She dared a glimpse into the kitchen.They sat facing each other, both leaning forward.Sam’s face had gone inscrutable, a little frown between his eyebrows.“Yeah?” he whispered, and closed the last inches between them, kissing Gene softly, gently.

It was weird.She watched, fascinated, as Sam worked into the kiss, inching closer, a hand coming up to squeeze the back of Gene’s neck and his breath hitching in gasps between kisses.

They broke apart when the floor door creaked.

“I’m awake,” said Annie, guiltily, as they sprang apart.“Did you make breakfast?”

Sam licked his lips.Swallowed.Gene stood to fill the kettle.Sam nodded.

“Do you mind if I have some?”

“Course not,” Gene groused.“You’ll have to cut your own kippers, though.”

-#-

It was funny how Sam could be so intense, and yet there were constant reminders of his invalid status.He tended to fall asleep almost at once after meals.He did so right there in the kitchen while Annie ate her breakfast (toast, jam, two eggs prepared by Gene), and Gene volunteered to put him back to bed while she washed up.

Gene came back into the kitchen furtively as she set aside the last plate.“His pills,” he said, almost apologetic.

“Gene.”

“What?!”

“What is it between you and Sam?”

He ducked his head.

She paused over her words, considering.“I feel like you—you look at him the same way you look at me.Sometimes.And I saw you kissing.”

“You—“ he stopped, looked at her with some kind of expression fighting to make an appearance on his face, then walked over to the sink and stared out the window.“I’d trust him with my life, y’know,” he said at last.“Anytime.Until the crazy bastard pulled that stunt with Morgan, and for a while I was sure he was leaving CID.And I felt…”

Annie watched his back, watched his shoulders lift, his fists on the edge of the counter.

“Betrayed,” he finished.“Which made me wonder why I cared so much.And after a little thinking I wondered why I even cared.What did it matter to me what my nutter of a DI had done with his life before he came to me?”He lapsed into silence, fingers tapping.

“What did you decide?”

“I wanted him around.I missed his fucking leather jacket.I missed his smartarse little smile.I missed the way he’d call me on it when he thought I had pushed too far.”

She sighed.“I know what you mean.Even when I was furious with him I knew he was right.I knew he was—in his own way, smarter than all of us.”

He turned back to her, eyes burning in his flushed face.“But I also missed the way…“ he paused and turned his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, then continued, “the way he pursed his lips.The way he held a pencil.The way he punched me back.The way he did—other things.”

“You want him here.”She stared up into his face.She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.“And me?”

“I want you here.”His eyes burned into her.She held a hand out to him.He walked forward and took it.His thumb stroked the back of her hand.

“I want to be here,” she said at last.They weren’t achieving any milestones in communication, just now, but at least the basics were out there.She’d take that for now.

“Good.”He looked uncommonly hesitant, as if he were mulling something over.“I want you both here.”

“Did you really kiss Sam?”

He looked defiant and furtive all at once.She had to smile when she realized what a captivating combination that was.

“Yeah.”

“Do you mind it when I kiss him?”

The corner of his mouth quirked.“I should bloody well think not.When you and he—when you started walking out, I thought, that’s good then.Nice girl.He can forget about me, easier for all concerned.”

She couldn’t help giving an exasperated sigh.

“Didn’t mean the other stuff hadn’t happened.”

She thought she knew what he was talking about; she had a pair of eyes in her head, after all, and now some data to put together with the things she’d been witnessing.“I always knew you cared about each other,” she said softly.

“Cared about each other,” he repeated with a wry twist.“Funny way to say it.Took care of each other’s needs, is what I’d always say.“

“So you’re saying—it was more?”He snorted and looked out the window again.“You and Sam, you had something more?”

“We stopped once you and he—I don’t want you to think he was unfaithful.”

“But I am, now, aren’t I?Unfaithful, I mean.”

He turned his green glare on her.“Perish the thought, sweetheart!I corrupted you.”

“Still,” she mused.

“I don’t want you thinking like that.It’s not your fault.”

“Whose, then?”

“Why does there have to be fault?We all acted on our impulses.It’s the way the world works; it’s why there are robberies and rapes and crimes of passion.Human beings can’t control these things.It’s why we have laws and prisons.There’s got to be some sort of rules.”

She stammered at that.“Are you suggesting we have committed crimes of passion?”not sure whether to laugh or start throwing things at his head.

“No.Impulses, petal.We’ve all had ‘em.We can’t be blamed for ‘em.”

“There’s got to be a better way to—“ she struggled for a moment.“To work this out.A better way than labeling ourselves, or dismissing our actions, or pretending nothing happened.”

“Well at least we’ve called it quits with the last one.”

“Not quite, but we’ve got a good start on it.I think the next step is to have this conversation again, but with three.”

“You do want the impossible, don’t you, sweetheart?”And he leaned in to kiss her, to take the sting out of it.

-#-

Heather tiptoed into his room when she got home from work.He could hear her, from the moment she entered the flat.He could smell her, the sweet smell of her perfume.And when she bent over him in the bed he could feel her heat, her hand before it even touched his forehead.

“Sammy?Are you asleep?”

He turned, pretended to wake up.“Heather?”

“Mum.Call me mum.It’s OK.”

“OK..”

She pressed her lips to hishair, inhaling the scent of him.“Oh, my beautiful boy.How are you, my darling?”

He lay in silence, absorbing her presence.She was so very _there_.She made him feel like she would always be there, and that made him ache with a sadness he couldn’t touch, couldn’t put into words.

-#-

They both went to work, although Gene popped home at lunch and then again halfway through the afternoon to make sure all was well.His terse report to her, “Dorothy’s fine.Sitting up in bed and practicing his knitting,” didn’t do much to allay her concerns and her combination of eagerness and trepidation when she thought of their eventual return home, but work was indeed a wonderful therapy for an overwrought mind.

When the detectives started leaving en masse for the pub and Gene declared his intention of going for a quick pint she stood and announced that she was heading home to check on Sam.

“Home’s where the heart is, is what my mum always used to say,” quipped Chris.

“Lord, you’re such a div,” snarled Ray.“Hey Cartwright, isn’t Tyler old enough to spend a few hours by himself?You look like you deserve a drink or three.”

“Yeah, but...” she made a helpless, harried gesture.“You go on.Drink to Sam’s recovery for me.I really do need to make sure he gets his supper.”

“I’ll go home, too.Makes more sense to drive together,” said Gene.

Sam was awake when they got home, and sitting up, although he dropped the book he was holding the instant the door opened, smiling to see them.“I love it when you come home.”He was probably lonely, she reflected, now that he spent more time actually awake and thinking.It was only going to get harder in that sense, for him to wait at home while they continued to work.

“Well, that really is a fine welcome,” she answered, taking a happy tone with him.

“Whisky,” announced Gene, fetching a bottle and three glasses from the kitchen.

“I’ve graduated to whisky?” Sam wondered.“What’s the occasion?I’m still on at least five sorts of medications, you know.”

“As if we could ever forget, with the unceasing labor of forcing them down your gullet.No, no occasion, but a little whisky won’t kill you and we’ve got to talk.”

Annie swallowed nervously and sat next to Sam on the sofa.“Well.”

Sam’s face had gone neutral.“Well.”

“Right.Let’s talk.”Gene pulled up the chair closest to the sofa and settled with an expectant expression.“Gladys.You know about—“ he made a vague gesture toward Annie.“And now, turnabout’s fair play, she knows about you and me.”

Sam looked taken aback.“And?”

She grinned.“And I’m not sure what to think.But I believe I saw it coming, without knowing what to call it.I’ve got a pair of eyes in my head, after all.”

“Right.”Gene cleared his throat.“I reckon there’s a way through this; we’re already living here together.The house is big enough for three.”

“You want me to stay?”Sam’s voice had shrunk, grown tentative.

“Wouldn’t dream of you going back to that flat.”

“You want me to stay… downstairs?”He stared at his fingers, plucking at the fabric of the sofa.

Annie shifted closer to him, pressing in to kiss his pale cheek.“You are such a little child, sometimes, Sam,” she murmured.“Of course not downstairs.”

“Bed’s big enough for three,” Gene muttered.

Sam’s eyes grew large.“You mean…”

“Yes.”

“Tonight no one sleeps alone.”And Gene clinked their glasses with his own before tossing back the mouthful of alcohol.

-#-

Sam balked during the bedtime routines.The whole awkward process of dealing with bathroom matters had already become tedious, but he did need the help, still, and he would accept it if he was given no choice in typical Gene fashion.

“Look.”Gene sighed heavily.“I’m not going to order you to come to bed.But I’m telling you you should, if you know what’s bloody well good for you.”

Sam stared at the bathroom floor.“It’s what you want?”

“Christ, Tyler.If I wanted to play Twenty Questions I would have said so.Yes, it’s what I want!”

“You don’t want to go on with Annie as you have been?”

“You keep on like this and you’re going to get a bastard big kick in the arse until your brain comes out your ears.Listen closely because I’m only saying it one more time; I would like you to finish up in here and get your bony arse into my bed, which I and our delightful WDC will be keeping warm for you.”With that note of finality Gene turned and left the room.

“C’mon.Let’s give the tosser some space to figure out his own mind.”He took Annie by the arm and led her into the bedroom, slipped out of his clothes and into his robe with a minimum of fuss and then under the bedcovers.She gave him a startled look.“He’ll be in in a moment,” Gene insisted.“Get in bed.”

She shrugged and did as he said.They exchanged looks, a little smile playing around the corners of Gene’s mouth.And then there was the thud creak of Sam’s crutches in the hall, getting louder.He poked his head around the door, eyes a little wide.

“I’m coming in,” said Sam.

“Took your time,” grunted Gene.

“Bloody crutches.”

“All right?” she asked when he had made his way to the bedside.He was frowning a little, his mouth tight with pain. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, slipped a thumb under the waistband of his pyjamas and raised an eyebrow at her.She smiled wryly.

“All right,” she said, and lifted her nightgown over her head.

Gene drew a sharp breath.“Didn’t know I was getting a show.”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” she chided him.“And you’ll have to help Sam.”

“Man’s work, eh?”But he got out of bed and helped Sam ease his pyjama bottoms off over the casts, then dropped his own robe to the floor.He stood there, naked, half aroused, watching the two of them sprawled across the bed.“Glory.How did this ever happen to me?”

“Must be your uncanny luck,” said Sam dryly.

“Turn off the lights, petal,” smirked Gene.“I do believe it’s time for bed.”

Annie felt Sam shudder in the darkness, shifting uneasily. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he said with a quaver in his voice.“I’m fine.”

“You will be, Sam.Just relax.”She leaned over to stroke his chest, kiss the side of his neck.

The bed dipped under Gene’s weight as he crawled onto it and straddled Sam’s legs.

“I can’t,” quavered Sam, “can’t do a lot of… things.Can’t lie in different positions.”

“You don’t have to.”Annie wiggled herself up against him.

“Yeah,” huffed Gene in the darkness.“Just let me do the work.”

He leaned over Sam.There was enough light to see him kiss a line down Sam’s flat belly, and then lower.She drew a breath.Really?Gene’s head bobbed; Sam shuddered against her.

“Oh god,” he moaned.

“Sam?” she whispered.

“Fuck…”The fingers of his good hand twined in Gene’s hair.“OK, yes, I can do _this_.”

Gene raised his head.“Should bloody hope so, Gladys.”

“God, just—keep on, please.”

Somehow knowing what was happening without seeing it clearly made her heat up more than she would have otherwise, but _god_ , was Gene really…?He was.She pressed her face to Sam’s neck, kissed his ear, whispered, “Is that good, Sam?”Wondering, was it the same, from a man?And on some deeper level, _I can have them both.I don’t have to choose_.It was the finest thing she had felt for weeks.

Sam shifted against her, arching his head back into the pillow.“Jesus.That feels so—yeah.Oh fuck, Gene.”He turned toward her, straining.“Annie, please.Kiss me?”

She caught his mouth with hers.He moaned into her mouth, writhed in place, hands fluttering in the sheets, and then cried out.Gene sat up and she could see him working Sam’s cock with his hand.

“Fuck yeah,” Gene muttered.A moment later he crawled up, straddling Sam, to kiss him.She knew; they had told her.She knew.But it was different to see them together like this, to know that they touched each other intimately.She really felt like the rules she had lived by were meant for some other people, just now.She wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

But Sam and Gene were kissing, here and now, and she wanted to kiss both of them at once—to feel Sam’s soft yielding, Gene’s bristling possession.She leaned in and pressed her lips to Sam’s cheek.They both turned a little, and she was kissing them both, lips and tongues and soft noises.Suddenly the bed was too hot.She was too hot, though she had shed her nightgown (and her inhibitions, commented a small, analytical part of her mind).

“God, Annie,” gasped Sam.

“Oh Sam,” she said.“I—I want you.”

He coughed.“Bit late, just now.Maybe later. But…”He looked at Gene.“I’m OK with it.”

Gene leaned in again, captured Sam’s mouth.“Fuck, Sammy-boy,” he whispered.“But I’m going to watch her ride you, later.”

Annie felt her face go hot.“You’re going to—well.”Turn about was fair play, it seemed.

“Is it all going to be like this?” she asked, as Gene eased her back, sliding a hand up the length of her thigh.

“Like what?”

“Taking turns—watching each other.”

Sam put a possessive hand on her breast.“I hope so.”

“But—no, really.Once Sam’s healed up.Can’t we all three… at the same time, somehow?”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it,” Gene growled, and lowered himself over her.

-#-

Vic stepped out of the blackness, and Sam had to blink, wanted to rub his eyes, wanted to _wake up_. Vic looked older, though it had only been nine months since they had faced each other at the wedding party.Haggard, even though he had never carried much weight on him.Haunted?Sam hoped so.

Angry.Vic looked angry.There were a few childhood memories lurking in the corners of Sam’s mind, the time he had knocked over the lamp Vic had from his parents, or the time he had bumped a full beer glass into Vic’s lap.There was something eerie about his anger—it didn’t change his expression, so much, but there were other physical cues.Tension.Silence.

Sam had cowered.He chose not to, now.“Where’s the boy?” he asked.Tried to make his voice hard.

“Not far.”

“What do you want?”

“Revenge.”

Sam rolled his eyes, flushed with disbelief.“For what?You chose to go!I did everything I possibly could do to convince you to stay.I begged you—“

“No,” Vic spat, his narrow face twisting.“I’m not going to explain it to you.Suffice it to say…” he shook his head.“I just want to hurt you, Sam.Funny coincidence, that.Don’t think I never thought about it.You and my Sammy.You and my Ruth.How long had you been coming around, visiting her?Has it been years?Four, five?Is that why she wanted to name him Sammy?”

“You—what?Are you seriously suggesting that I—“

“Are you denying it?”

“Yes!”

Vic shook his head.“Oh, Inspector Tyler.Try pulling the other one.No.This is not open for discussion.”

“What do you want me to do?Where’s the boy?”Sam took a step forward, gauging the footing.Twenty feet across rough ground.

In between one moment and the next the darkness swallowed Vic.He had just stepped back, into the shadows, behind a concrete wall.But the effect was eerie.Sam looked left and right, around the deserted construction site, piles of rubble and concrete boxes and shadows.

“Where’s the boy?” Sam yelled.“You have to tell me!I’m a police officer!”

“Oh, I know that,” Vic’s voice echoed back.“Little Sammy Tyler.Wants to be a policeman.”

Sam slipped around a corner, waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.“What are you saying, Vic?”

“Ironic, isn’t it?”His voice seemed to come from everywhere.“We would have been fine if it weren’t for you.I would have stayed.No one needed to know about my business.Ruth didn’t need to know.You hurt her, Sam.You hurt her so much…”

Sam swallowed.“You’ll hurt her more if you take her boy away!Tell me where he is!”

The half-finished structures were ghosts in the twilight, concrete walls fading into shadow.No street lights near enough to illuminate anything, the sky a fading blue.Sam ducked around a corner, searching, scanning rapidly, holding his breath to listen for movement.He wished for a handgun.For a truncheon.There might be a length of pipe around, or a plank.Something to defend himself if Vic turned out to be aggressive.

Mostly he wondered why he had no memory of this.

“Vic!”He swept around another wall, staring into the shadows.“ _What_ do you want?”

“Family.”The voice was farther away.

“You left them!” Sam screamed.

“Money.”

“Work for it.Like everyone else.”This construction seemed aimless and without design, concrete walls looming here and there like a nightmare.

Sam ducked around another dark corner and found himself face to face with Vic.Eyes.Nose.Thin-lipped mouth.Uneven forelock, streak of dirt on his cheek.Muscle jumping in his jaw.His eyes widened—Sam stepped back.

“No,” he said, barely a breath.“No, Dad…”

And Vic lashed out—too late Sam saw the piece of pipe in his hand—Vic had had the same idea—and it punched him in the shoulder, glanced off his ear.Sam staggered back, a step, two, pain like flashes of light in his head, and then his foot stepped into nothing.

He fell.

-#-

“But Dad…”

“Hush now, Sammy.”

“Dad, where’s Mum?”

“It’s time you were asleep.”

Silence.The steady drip of water.A distant rustling.And then a cry, a weird, awful, eerie cry, something he had never heard before in his life.

Silence.Sniffling.

“I w-w-want my mummy…”

A sigh.“She’s not here, son.You’ll have to do without her now, but soon we’ll all be together.”

“Mum.”

“And we’ll be happy, one big happy family… and we’ll have money… and a house…”

“Mummy…”

The cry again, directionless.

“Shut up, Sam!”

“I want her!Give me my mummy!Heather!”

Sam woke.A dim light was stealing in through the curtains.The ceiling swam, hazy in the dawn.He slowly unclenched his hands, feeling the ache, head throbbing with a memory of pain.

“Sam?”Annie was watching him, brows creased.“Are you OK?”

He heaved a breath.“I don’t know.”

“What is it?”

“A dream.Just a…”

On the other side of the bed Gene snorted, shifted.

“Are you sure?”

He turned to look at her, as lost as he ever had been.She felt like she needed to swallow, to choke down her love for him, for his need, for his gentleness.Just now he needed guidance, not smothering.

“What was it, Sam?”

“My—my dad!It was—seemed so real, and so dark, and I was a little boy.He had taken me away, and I wanted my mum, I wanted to go home.And then I called out for her, and I said… Heather!”

“Wasn’t your mother’s name Ruth?”

“Yes!And it wasn’t like a dream!It was a memory!But it never happened!” Sam whispered into his hands.“I never… I never remembered that before… I never had that—I would have remembered that, Annie!Wouldn’t I?”

She put a hand over his.“It’s traumatic, Sam.Especially for a small child.But—“

“Wouldn’t I remember being abducted by my own father?”

“Vic Tyler…” she sighed.“He’s younger than you, Sam.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know you’ve been on lots of medications and you haven’t been fully yourself for a couple of weeks.Don’t you think that might be causing these dreams?Isn’t that more likely?”

“But where’s Ruth Tyler?Why isn’t she screaming bloody murder about her lost son?”

Annie sat back.“We don’t know.They’re looking.”

“Well tell them to call…” his voice caught in his throat.“Tell them to call Heather.Heather Williams.”

-#-

“Had a call, Guv,” Ray yelled.“They found a dead bird in Stockport.And, thing is, we know it’s related to Vic Tyler.He was identified by the neighbors.Left the flat three weeks ago with a little boy in tow.”

The world flashed grey, and sound came back again.Annie realized she had lowered herself to a chair.Gene’s hand was on her shoulder.

“Cartwright?You with us?”His eyes bored into her.

“I just—think I might know who that woman is.”

-#-

The morgue was just as it always had been, quiet and dark.Gene rolled Sam’s wheelchair in, the sound of the wheels far too loud, echoing against the tile.

“We’ve already had her identity confirmed,” Annie said, small, wishing there was something else to say.“You don’t have to…”

“I do,” Sam answered. His face was as remote as a distant landscape.“Just let me.”

The coroner led them into an anteroom where a slim blond woman stood waiting, stern in a grey skirt and jacket.“I’m Heather Williams,” she introduced herself.Her face was blotchy with tears.“You’re the detectives?Oh!”

“Yes,” Sam choked.“We’ve met before.”

Annie met Gene’s eyes.Hers were wet.His were unreadable.

“But you—“

“I had—an accident.”

“Are you here to see her?To… confirm?”

Sam seemed at a loss for words, his eyes locked on Heather’s face.Annie moved forward to extend a hand.“Yes.We wanted to get your confirmation that it is indeed your sister.We haven’t found her son yet, but we will, Miss Williams.”

“I know you will,” Heather answered, a little woodenly.“I just can’t think that little Sammy could be—“ she choked off.

“He’s alive,” said Sam suddenly.“Trust me.He is alive.And he’s going to need you, Heath—Miss Williams.More than he ever has.”

She stared at him, pulled her hand back slowly, as if she had forgotten about it in the hazel intensity of his gaze.“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”Sam nodded.“I promise you.”

Gene exchanged a glance with Annie.“Right,” he announced.“Let’s do what we came for and get this over with.”

The coroner took a step forward.“This way please,” he said quietly, and gestured the group of them toward a doorway.

Ruth was in a cold drawer; she had already been in a state of decomposition.The morgue attendant pulled her out, revealed her face.Annie didn’t think it looked much like her any more.The hair, yes, but the features were distorted, made wrong by swelling and discolouration.

Sam bent forward in the wheelchair, made a noise.She touched his back.

“Mummy,” he groaned.

Gene turned his eyes to the ceiling, then away.

Heather grasped for Annie’s proffered hand, taking several quick breaths.“Oh god.Yes, yes it’s her.”

Sam put his hands over his face.“No.”

“Cause of death was a broken neck.Her body was found at the foot of the stairs; quite likely an accident,” said the coroner, in the same soft tone he had used since they had entered the office.

Annie shot him a glance, wishing for even a small amount of privacy as Heather Williams turned her face away and choked on a sob. Sam twisted in his chair, covering his face.

“We’re done,” barked Gene.“Close her up.Show the woman some decency.”He didn’t specify which woman he meant and no one said a word as they turned their backs on the remnants of Ruth Tyler.

They rolled him back out again, closed off behind his hands and twisted like a discarded toy in his wheelchair.Annie kept waiting for the consequences, the explosion of pain or anger or the insistence that that really was his mum.It scared her that he wasn’t doing any of that.They had done a chapter on grief, at university.It took different people differently.She wished the book had offered up more answers, now.

Gene stopped the chair in the hall, fumbled a flask from his jacket.“Drink this, Gladys.”

Sam dropped his hands from his face, remote, eyes half closed.But he held out a hand, took the flask, tipped it back and drained it.

“Why,” Sam whispered.“Would this—could this even happen? She will be at my bedside.She will.She—I talked to her, Annie.”He turned his face to the ceiling in supplication, his voice spiraling upwards. “ I talked to her before—before I came back to you.We had a fucking talk!She can’t be dead!It’s not how it happened!”

Annie knelt to look into his eyes.“Sam.Think about what you’re saying.”

“I have thought way too fucking much,” he hissed, and pressed his lips together, refusing to go on.

“What are you saying?” said Heather on a rising note.“What do you have to do with Ruth?Why are you here?”She pointed at Sam accusingly.“What are you talking about—you talked to her?Before?”

Annie put a calming hand on Heather’s shoulder—it was rigid with pain and anger.“Miss Williams.Please. Sam talked to Ruth when he was investigating the Morton brothers case.That’s why we’re concerned about what happened to her, and where Vic Tyler is.Police business.”

Heather clenched her hands, tears still running down her cheeks.“It’s not right!” she sobbed,“For you to see her like that!”

“I’m sorry.We’re leaving now.But we will find her son, trust me.”

Sam stared at the wall, stared at nothingness.

-#-

The black suit itched.Sammy didn’t like wearing a tie; it made him feel strangled.He worked a finger under it.Something tapped the top of his head; he looked up into Auntie Heather’s face; she looked so forbidding, so unlike herself, that he swallowed and let his hands drop.

They sat next to each other as the room filled up, quiet voices murmuring in the background.He thought about airplanes.A couple of neighbor women walked up to where they sat.

I’m so sorry,” said the older one.“She was such a lovely woman, such a kind mother to this boy.”Her eyes were brimming.

Sam let her touch his cheek, though he wanted to be somewhere else, on a beach, or in the back garden scraping at the dirt.He thought about dirt.How dark it was.How you could bury something and come back to find it later, and it might have changed, the paint wearing off.Or you could find new things, things you hadn’t known were there.

Special things.

-#-

Annie only realized she had dozed off when Gene’s front door swung open with a bang and Gene himself came storming into the room, all flapping coat and red face.

“Where’s Sam?”

“I thought he was with you!”

Gene gave her a look; she blushed, as if he was saying all the words he so obviously wasn’t.“I was with Ray, following up on that lead from the development—I left you the Cortina—“His head whipped toward the front door.“It’s gone.Bugger.”

She rushed to the front windows.The wheelchair was on the front stoop, and the only car parked in front was her Toyota.Could Sam manage brake and clutch with the state of his feet?Well, yes, clearly, he had managed somehow.The evidence was incontrovertible.

Gene’s laugh was loud enough, real enough to bounce off the walls.“Bravo, Dorothy!Got your spine back, did you?”

“Where would he go?” she quavered, rubbing sleep from her eyes and trying to shake her brain into some sort of working order.

“Them birds.”

“Peacocks.”

“Where would he find ‘em?”

“In Manchester?”Her head spun.“I don’t know if I’ve ever—“

He stalked to the kitchen door, stopped, stalked back again.“There’s Heaton Park, they’ve got animals, birds.It’s a maze, the place.All sorts of outbuildings.Good place to hide a lad, come to that.”

“So Sam had nightmares about peacocks,” she protested.“Do you really think that means there’s any—“

“Annie.”He grabbed both her hands.“Think about it.Sam’s had dreams about Vic Tyler ever since he fell—or was pushed—into that hole. Don’t you think that means something?”

“Why would it mean something?” she yelled.“They’re dreams!”

“Don’t you psychoanalyze dreams for their, wossit, deeper meanings?Come on, Cartwright!Work with me!Gut instinct!Where do you think Sam is right now?”

“I wish to bloody hell I had the slightest idea!”

“Go with mine then, there’s a good girl.Don’t you trust my gut?”

She sighed and looked around for her shoes.“Yes, Guv.”

“That’s more like it.”

They were out the door and into the car before she had quite caught her breath, and then the engine was racing and they were off.Gene threw the Toyota around with as much abandon as he ever used with the Cortina.Annie clenched her jaw, reminded herself of just how much she trusted him, and hung on.Tyres squealed.Headlights and shadows smeared across her vision as she lost track entirely of which direction they were going.

“You know where you’re going?” she shouted.

He shot her a look, long enough that she wished he would actually pay attention to the critical task of steering the car, and finally snorted in answer.

A moment later they were skidding to a halt next to a familiar orange Cortina.The door was open, the car empty.

“Sam!”

“Where are you?Sammy!”

Their voices echoed in the twilight as they ran through green arching entryways and along sandy paths.Annie caught a glimpse of a park map as they dashed past the visitor center; it wouldn’t have done any good anyway as they had no idea where to start… except that Sam couldn’t have gone far.

Her gasping breaths roared in her ears.Even if he had been crying out in answer she wouldn’t have heard him.Where could he be?And what—what did he think he was doing?

“Split up,” gasped Gene.“You go that way.We’ll find him.”

“He couldn’t get far!”

“I know.But there are too many paths.Now go!”He jogged off in one direction; she took the other.

Twilight didn’t usually scare her; too much time in the city, her mum would have said.Too much time working late into the evening, walking home by herself and keeping calm because there really was no better option.Once she and Sam had started dating it had been sweet to have an escort, once in a while, but she had never come to rely on him for that.It didn’t seem right.She knew there was danger in darkness but it didn’t scare her because she was a WDC, trained and able.

But this was different; this was a crowded, arboreal darkness, and all the shapes were uneven and unexpected.She ran down one path until it forked, stared unknowingly into one darkness and then chose the other.She trended uphill, not sure why.It was a gentle slope and it took her further and further from the road noises.There were smells, and animal noises in the distance.She chose another path, desperate and sure she was wrong, and suddenly there was a call, a wild, wailing call somewhere in the darkness to the left of her.It was so weird and loud she had no idea how far away it was.

And there was a path to take in that direction.She pelted down it.She saw the peacock strutting as she ran past – it was in an open glade, but the path continued up a slope and she could hear voices, tight, angry voices.

She slowed as she walked up the hill, trying not to draw their attention.

It was like a tableau, a work of art.The men, dark figures against the velvet sky.The boy on his knees with his hands in the dirt.Sam was standing but she could see him sway.As she scrambled up the hill she saw him fall to his knees, raise his face to the sky.He was sobbing.

“Why are you doing this?” he cried.

Vic leveled the gun.“Oh, DI Tyler, where are your detective skills now?”

“I don’t understand anything anymore!”

Vic lowered the gun, pointed it at the boy.The world seemed to pause, take a breath.Annie stared into that little face.So constrained, so focused, so familiar.“What happens if I kill him?” Vic asked.“What happens to you?”

Sam heaved a breath, choked on a sob.“Dad.Please.”

“Don’t know, do you?Will you be gone?Cease to exist?I don’t know why or how, but you’ve convinced me.”Vic cocked his head.“So where does that leave us?”

“Shoot me, if you have to,” Sam moaned.“Don’t take him.”

Vic’s face shifted in an instant, to loathing.“Take him?He’s my boy!My son!Do you have any idea—“

“You already took him from his mother,” Annie called.

Vic spun and the gun shifted with him.“You.”

“Yes,” she answered.Calm.Her focused narrowed to this one man, this one place.She could handle him.

“You think you have answers.”His face was a puzzle to her.There were clues, angles.Ways in to his brain.She felt it all slowing, assembling itself.A muscle twitched, in his cheek.His eyes narrowed.“You don’t know me,” he said.

His finger tightened on the trigger.She watched it happen.She felt the world slow another notch.

There was a sharp report.A bang.

The world sped up.

Vic’s face had changed in that instant, a shift from knowing to being, from a focus on a single intent to an awareness of everything.She watched his attention turn inward, to the things happening inside his body.To the place where a dark patch appeared on the front of his T-shirt.

Sam, her Sam, fell forward, curling inward on himself.The boy had raised his head.He was staring off into the distance, his face uncannily like his father’s, the thousand-yard stare of a victim or a soldier who has seen too much.

She drew a breath.

“Annie!”Gene came runningup the slope, pistol in one hand.He looked gorgeously, absurdly heroic, with his camelhair jacket flapping, hair whipped by the wind.She wanted to take a picture.And then she wanted to laugh; and then she was laughing, wrapping her arms around herself to hold in the surging emotions.

Vic fell to his knees.

Gene paused for a moment, when he could have gone to Vic or to her, and then strode forward and took the gun from Vic’s nerveless fingers.“You’re nicked,” he said.“For the abduction of a child and threatening two police officers.”

Vic’s eyes rolled at him.“Ruth,” he whispered.The stain on the front of his shirt ran down to his belt.He trembled, head lolling forward, and then collapsed as if every muscle had gone slack at once.

Annie drew another breath.

She didn’t know what to do.Sam was curled up around himself, rocking a little.He made no noise.The boy stared into the distance while his hands scratched in the dirt.She walked over to him and knelt.She slipped a hand under his, rubbed her thumb over the back of his dirty fingers.

“All right?” she asked, surprised at the calm of her own voice.“Did he hurt you?”

“I want my mum,” said the boy in a whisper.His lips barely moved.His fingernails were black with dirt.

“He’s dead,” said Gene.His hand was on Vic Tyler’s neck.He and Annie both looked at Sam, curled in on himself and rocking.A jumble of thoughts ran though Annie’s head; Sam on the roof of the building, Sam insisting that Vic was his dad, Sam’s white, pinched face in the morning sun when they pulled him from the shaft…

Her eyes stung with tears.“Sam, darling,” she whispered.The boy’s fingers tightened on hers.

“Do you know where my mum is?” he asked, barely audible.

“Fuck,” said Gene.He scrambled over to Sam on his hands and knees, patted across Sam’s back and tried to get him to sit up.“Sammy.Listen to me.You’re all right.”Sam pulled away from him, deeper into his own private hell.“Tyler!Shit, listen to me!”

A noise was coming from Sam now, something animal, primeval.Annie grasped the little boy’s hand harder.“Oh god, do something,” she said.

Gene arched over Sam’s back, wrapped his arms around him, pressed his face to the back of Sam’s neck.“Sam.We’re here.We’ve got you.Sammy.Oh fuck, Annie.”His face was drawn.

She took a deep breath.“Back to the cars.We have to make the call.Can you carry him?”

Gene’s blank desperation shifted.“Yeah.”

It all ended as it had begun, with a wild drive through the streets of Manchester and disarray in CID.Annie shuddered, knowing that Vic Tyler’s body was being carried off, talking to a hysterical Heather Williams as she wept and laughed over the little boy, and he clung to her legs and refused to talk to anyone else about what had happened over the past three weeks.

-#-

Hours.

Hours of Annie hugging Sam, or Gene taking a turn, talking at him, swearing, stalking around the room while Sam cried and turned away and screamed into his pillow.There seemed no way out but through.They couldn’t leave him alone, that much was clear.

“What have I done,” he croaked at gone four in the morning, temporarily exhausted and blank-faced.Gene was in the kitchen making yet another pot of coffee.Annie pulled Sam’s head onto her shoulder and he gave only token resistance.She stroked his sweaty back.

“Nothing but what you could,” she answered.She had driven back to her flat at half past midnight to consult with her old psychology textbooks and had returned feeling scarcely more well equipped to face Sam’s crisis.But at least she knew what to expect at the moment.The lull, the self-recriminations, the escalating cycle of self-hatred and lunacy.She took a deep breath and let it out again, let herself just feel the heat of his face against the crook of her neck.

“Not supposed to happen,” he said.

“I know.”

“I killed her.”

“You didn’t.”

“How can I live with this?”

“You’ll find a way.”

She felt his tears through her shirt, his back shaking under her hand.Gene returned from the kitchen with two steaming mugs.He put them down on the side table and took a seat next to Sam.

“Oi, Gladys,” he said softly.“You’ll cry your eyes right out of your head.You need to stop that now.”

Sam fumbled one handed for Gene.His hand was captured, squeezed hard.

“Shouldn’t have been possible,” Sam choked. 

“You can’t think that way.”

“I want to die.”

Gene laid himself across Sam’s back, nose to the back of Sam’s neck, and reached across to include Annie in the embrace.She felt numb with exhaustion and the aftereffects of terror.She looked into Gene’s face, gaunt with sleeplessness, twitchy with caffeine.

“Not your fault,” she whispered, feeling dizzy with tiredness.Sam gripped her harder.

Some time later, still wrapped around each other, her leg going numb and her back screaming in protest, she started out of a doze.She bit back a groan; the light was still on though it was black outside.Gene was asleep, draped across Sam’s back.Sam moved a little.

“Are you all right, Annie?”

“Yes.Are you, Sam?”

He didn’t answer for a while.She waited for him to start shaking again, for the agony to set in.He breathed in, evenly, and out again.“I’m surviving,” he said at last.“I’ve gone numb.It’s all so wrong that I just don’t care anymore, but I’m here and—“He stopped, still breathing evenly, head resting on her shoulder.“You’re here.”

“Stay,” she whispered, “here.Forever.”

“OK then,” and there was a ghost of humor in his voice.“I will.”

-#-

“We are here to share our memories of Ruth and Vic Tyler,” said the man at the pulpit.

Sam swallowed.He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere.He wanted to be back in his room with his toys.He wanted to be in the yard, digging, playing with Ivanhoe.He looked around at the ranks of grim faces.Some women were crying, holding handkerchiefs to their faces.He didn’t recognize all of them.

He twisted to look down the aisle.There was a man in a wheelchair at the back of the church, parked in the center aisle.Sam remembered him from before, from the bad time.The man was crying, tears running down his face.The woman standing next to him saw Sam looking at her; she waved, then pointed forward.He turned back around in his seat.

“…death sometimes takes our loved ones before their time,” said the minister.“For Ruth and Victor, taken so cruelly from us, we can feel only sorrow and compassion.”

Sam looked down at his hands again.Heather had put plasters on his cuts.He had a broken fingernail.He thought about the shed, the darkness, his dad promising food and ice creams and special things.He tried to think of his mum but her face seemed so distant.He thought of Heather.

She was crying next to him, silently, but he knew it.He always knew when she was crying.He loved her.

-#-

On the morning of the funeral Annie woke before either of them.She lay still on her side of the bed staring at the grey dawn light as it drew shapes out of the darkness, and felt Sam’s heart beating against her back.He was warm, his arm a heavy weight across her waist.Gene snored somewhere on the other side of the bed.She closed her eyes and opened them again.

It was all still there.The room, the heavy furniture, the chair with clothes draped across it, Sam’s crutches leaning in the corner.This was her life, now.This was what she would wake up to for the foreseeable future. She smiled into the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut with the joy of it.Ironic that what she was thinking of as the beginning of the rest of their lives was starting with that acknowledgement of death.Still.She felt no remorse for finding some small happiness.

Later Sam went along for the ride.He allowed them to dress him in one of Gene’s black suits, loose and ridiculous on Sam’s wasted legs, but at least the trousers fit over his casts.Gene tied the knot of Sam’s tie, officious and gentle all at once.Watching the two of them together made Annie’s heart swell.

“I don’t need to do this,” Sam complained.

“You are bloody well going,” huffed Gene, shrugging into his own suit jacket.“It’s not a choice, Sammy-boy.It’s an obligation.”

Annie applied mascara, watching them behind her in the mirror, watching the tenderness with which they argued.This was not an easy time, nor would the future be.But they were finding ways of getting through it.Ways of being together.

Later still they milled around in the shade by the church.The day was blazing with sun, all the men sweltering in their black and their grey wool, the women fanning their faces and chatting in small groups.

“Yes,” said Heather as they lingered by the refreshments.“I’m taking care of Sammy.”She took a sip from her cup of tea, absentmindedly, her eyes drifting back to the knot of people at the gravesite.

“You’re his closest living relative, aren’t you?” asked Annie.“I wouldn’t think there’d be any trouble with adopting.”

“I don’t think there will be, no.I just don’t want to assume anything at this point.”

“You’ll be a great mother,” muttered Sam, staring down into his lap.Gene, standing just behind him quiet and officious as a butler, put a hand on his shoulder.

Sam came running up to them across the manicured lawn.He looked incongruous in his tiny suit with its grey waistcoat, not in any way approximating an adult but playacting on some level.The knees of the trousers were black with dirt already.

“Oh, Sam!What have you been doing?” scolded Heather, but without much heat.

“Look what I found,” he said.On the palm of his hand there was a round silver shape.His fingers were grubby, nails black with dirt.The chain of the medallion was wrapped around his thumb.His serious little face was focused on the object, but Annie, watching, could almost see him taking in their reactions.Evaluating, checking to see if they were watching or not.

Sam, her Sam, leaned forward in his wheelchair to see.He stuck out a finger to turn the medallion, then smiled and brushed the lock of hair out of young Sam’s eyes.

“You hold onto that,” said Sam.“It’s good luck.That’s St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers.Did you just find that in the dirt?” He fished in the gap of his own shirt and pulled out a similar medallion.“I’ve had mine…”His eyes got a faraway look.Annie held her breath, watching his eyes go out of focus, the muscles of his face slacken.

“I’ve had mine all my life.”

 

 


End file.
